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54cka6 | why are terraced houses in new york and possibly other places elevated? | I'm not from the US. Not sure how you guys call it, row houses, terraced, townhouses. You often see them being elevated in NY (in films at least). Is this just for possible flooding?
[Long Island, NY](_URL_0_)
[Brooklyn, NY](_URL_2_)
[Montreal](_URL_1_) | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/54cka6/eli5_why_are_terraced_houses_in_new_york_and/ | {
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"They have lower levels (originally servants quarters) besides the main entrance, they usually go below street level. Every place is different, but I would assume that the underground pipping as well as water level do not allow for basements of considerable depth, which is why he main level is above street level. These lower levels have their own exterior door and are rented out.",
"For some of the buildings they were built before modern sewer and road systems so the lower part is where the street level was when the building was built. As they laid down sewer piping or other systems and paved roads they built the road up instead of digging out the existing road. \n\nFor some the building were build with servants entrances being on lower levels and people of importance entering at the second floor. \n\nFor some buildings they were not able to get full basements built and so they have what is known as a half basement. "
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"https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/2/2a/Row_houses_in_alternating_cream%2C_yellow%2C_and_gray_brick%2C_in_Bushwick%2C_Brooklyn.jpg"
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8uakld | how does algae grow in extremely low light to no light places? | I just had to clean out my air conditioning drain and it made me wonder how that much algae can grow with what seems like no source of energy. I mean its condensed water draining so its not like it has a ton of stuff to "eat" and theres no light in the hose. | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/8uakld/eli5_how_does_algae_grow_in_extremely_low_light/ | {
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"Some stuff called \"algae\" isn't actually algae, but instead is heterotrophic bacteria or fungi, so that's one possibility."
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72enc9 | the concept of friction (static friction)? | [deleted] | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/72enc9/eli5_the_concept_of_friction_static_friction/ | {
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"Assuming no forces are operating on it, nothing. When forces begin interacting with it in the same direction as friction, friction will retard the force until the friction force is overcome."
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300kje | why can't iran have nuclear weapons | ELI25 is ok too :)
Can someone explain why would it be so bad if Iran developed a nuclear program?
Why does Israel have the right to have nuclear weapons or Pakistan or any other but Iran can't. | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/300kje/eli5_why_cant_iran_have_nuclear_weapons/ | {
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"Because they can't be trusted with them. Kind of like why we are concerned with North Korea having them as well.",
"From a treaty standpoint, Iran signed the Nuclear non-proliferation treaty that states that countries without nuclear weapons will not develop them.\n\nFrom a practical standpoint, Iran has been very openly hostile to the US and its allies, with former presidents of Iran stating that they will \"wipe Israel off the map\". \n\nThey also are well know for supplying weapons and money to palestinian groups like Hamas which regularly target israeli civilians and exist for the sole purpose of destroying the Jewish state.",
"Pakistan is probably going to be as big a problem as Iran would be. Not because of their values, or open hostility (there is some) but because the instability there makes it scarily possible that someone, say, non-governmental, might get hold of one and actually use it. This was a big concern after the Soviet collapse, that fringe groups might suddenly become nuclear powers.",
"The existing nuclear powers and the majority of non-nuclear countries attempt to limit the spread of nuclear weapons. This desire is universal but considered even more important when a country deemed irresponsible, unstable, or having ties to terrorist organizations is concerned. Very few governments want Iran to possess nuclear weapons.\n\nThis concern is amplified with regard to Iran for the following stated reasons; \n\n* Iran is considered a significant state sponsor of terrorism. \n* Iran is considered irresponsible and more likely to use or threaten to use a weapon. \n* Iran acquiring a nuclear weapon would lead other nations to acquire nuclear weapons including Saudi Arabia and Egypt. \n* Apocalyptic or fatalistic quotes from Iranian political and military leaders. \n* Iran has few friends and has alienated many world powers. \n\nThe goal is stopping the spread of nuclear weapons and other weapons of mass destruction, rather than Israel or Pakistan have the right to nuclear weapons and Iran does not. Governments were very concerned about Pakistan becoming a nuclear power and remain very concerned about Pakistani nuclear weapons. \n",
"It's NEVER good when the number of nuclear weapons on the planet increases, no matter WHO builds them.\n\nHowever, all the noise about Iran building a nuke is just conservative scaremongering.\n\nThe argument typically runs that Iran will actually USE a nuke if they had one, but that's bullshit, and for the same reason that you don't hear a lot of people worrying about North Korea's Fearsome Atomic Arsenal: they can't actually USE the damn, thing, it's just there for bluff and bluster.\n\nOh, but wait! The leaders are insane! They keep going on about Death to Everyone Who Isn't Us!\n\nYyyeeeaaaahhhhh...no. Doesn't matter. See, here's the hard reality of the situation: it just doesn't matter if the nation's leader is actually insane or is just all talk. Let's take North Korea's charming Kim clan as our example, because they probably come a lot closer to actual batshit insane than anyone in Iran.\n\nSo what would happen if Dear Leader one day up and ordered the entire nuclear arsenal--all one or two bombs--to be unloaded on, say, South Korea? Answer: nothing. Kim's cheese might have slipped off his cracker, but he doesn't hold an actual button connected to a nuclear missile. NO world leader does. He issues an order, and it has to go through channels.\n\nAnd in those channels, there are a lot of guys--some of whom wield a great deal of power themselves--who will understand perfectly what would happen next: one US sub parked off the coast would turn North Korea into a glass parking lot. It ain't gonna happen. The only thing we'd hear about it in the West would be a terse notice that Dear Leader had retired to a farm upstate to meditate, leaving General So An So in charge in the interim.\n\nAnd the same is true of Iran. Forget all that fiery rhetoric that Ahmadinejad used to spout when he was president, it's all talk. The president of Iran isn't the top guy in charge. In fact, there are 86 guys guys in line AHEAD of him. And they aren't idiots.\n\nThe same is true for a nation intentionally giving a nuke to terrorists: the national origins of a nuclear detonation can be traced, and if Iran gave a bomb to some terrorist group to use, they know perfectly well they'd be held responsible.\n\nYou know whose nukes you SHOULD be worried about? America's. Since the 1950s, there have been over a dozen incidents where we came > that < close to detonating a nuke on American soil (outside of controlled tests, obviously). In almost all cases, the only thing that prevented it was blind, doo-dah luck.\n\nThese days, the Air Force has been having a bit of a problem with their launch officers, the guys who turn the Actual Keys that launch the Actual Missiles. More and more of them have been caught cheating on their qualifications tests, and many have been found to be wrapped up in compromising situations, like having huge gambling debts.\n\nIn 2007, six live, nuclear-tipped cruise missiles were loaded onto a B-52 and flown around the US for a couple days. Nobody authorized it, nobody knew it was happening, nobody can explain how it could even happen.\n\nSo, you know, sleep tight..."
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89pi4s | why do supermarkets constantly change the layout of where items are placed? | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/89pi4s/eli5_why_do_supermarkets_constantly_change_the/ | {
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"This is to prevent you from learning where everything is and going directly to the items you want and only getting them. If forces you to wander the isles a little bit which increases the chances of you buying more. ",
"A familiar shopper walks straight through the door, around a corner to the left, picks up toilet paper, backtracks two rows, turns right, grabs two soda cans, turns left, grabs bread, walks forward, stretch out the left arm to have some ham and go directly to the milk.\n\nAnd then straight to checkout.\n\nWhile they get exactly what they want, they also never ever try something new.\n\nIf you want people to try new things (this is a pretty neat way to upsale things. if you buy new things and try them, they may end up on your list of things you buy every week. or once a month) you have to make them browse more.\n\nTo make them browse more, you'll have to make them pay attention.\n\nUnfortunately, one of the easiest ways to do that is to shuffle the entire store. Because then you *have to* pay attention.",
"The employees are supposed to follow a schematic that only changes occasionally except for minor salrs changes.\n\nThe employees are undertrained, ordering products is a nightmare and the order sheet doesn't match the schematic so the consistently mis-order items. This causes gaps in the schematic. Gaps which need to be filled so that their department looks good so the employees just throw whatever product they have on hand in. \n\nThe prices change weekly but the store is understaffed to keep the shareholders happy. This results in a disorganized department where the prices dont match the product and the product isn't where it is supposed to be.\n\nSource: was just hired from outside the industry to clean up a department as manager and these are my observations. Wish me luck.",
"The amount of shelf space allocated to products changes as seasons change. It's hard to sell a hearty chili in the hot summer, but cold winter dinners feature it. The store is also trying to conserve some ideas, like ketchup is next to mustard, that help shoppers find things. Since the pattern of the shelves themselves is fixed, these two ideas are incompatible.\n\nSince something has to move, the store is using A/B testing to figure out what pattern of stuff produces the greatest sales profits. That's why it's a long walk to the milk.",
"Adjustments to shifts in consumer preferences over time... for example, as natural/organic foods grew and stores needed to add aisles specifically for that, then they need to consolidate other sections to make room. Same for increase in ethnic foods, yogurt's increase vs. juice's decline, rise of pre-packaged fresh items, and so on.\n\nAlso, there is some truth to mixing things up to get people out of their trance and force them to explore the store more. Groceries are the most granularly studied retail so there is lots of data on how to increase sales.",
"Worked at Trader Joe’s for 8 years.. As far as their product placement is concerned it only changed when an employee feels there is a better way to organize. Product order writers change and employees become in charge of different sections. Managers usually empower employees and push them to find better ways to organize and place products. If an item is flying off the shelf selling multiple cases a day then that product may need more shelf space which in turn could move another product somewhere else. There is also the human factor like having an employee load a section they have never done before and don’t know where the products go so they make a new spot for it. They also get a lot of one time buys and new products that could change the shelving landscape. If entire aisles are changed and moved, it is usually due to a new manager or regional manager that has ideas about customer flow. They will usually try and improve high congestion areas or make the flow of shopping easier. There are also occasions where they need to expand or reduce the amount of shelving which could in turn force them to relocate entire sections so there is enough space for all the products.",
"Several reasons:\n\nOne, venders will pay the store to have certain items placed in high traffic, high visible areas.\n\nTwo, availability of products. If there are certain seasonal items that sell, they will get priority where they are placed. As well as new products coming in, or older products not selling as well, so they are moved. \n\nMarket research. Stores have marketing people that will send them notifications that certain products will sell better if near area A or B. So the stores will relocate the product.\n\nSometimes its just a matter of space. The store will realize that they sell a lot more of this, so then they have to make room for it. And other products get bumped and shifted.",
"I've never encountered this. For years things have been in the same spots. They have a layout designed to make you buy as much as possible. From the order of the aisles to what price goods are going on which shelves. Can you provide me with an example of a store that changes their layout. It would seem to only annoy the customers that don't want to relearn the stores layout frequently.",
"I work at a grocery store that has super low back stock, and ideally stuff would come off the truck and go onto the shelves.\nIt doesn’t quite work out that way but we’re constantly moving stuff around to minimize our back stock.\n\nSo produce is constantly shifted around to keep our back stock as low as possible, and because we specialize in seasonal produce, that section is reorganized every morning based on what we get in/what is available.\n\nOur buyers also like to take advantage of deals so sometimes well get a plus out of some special one time item and so we move stuff around to accommodate these items all the time.\n\nAlso, we like to change our grocery end caps and register caps to reflect whatever season/holiday is coming to take advantage of those sales.\n\nAnd all the time this stuff is moving around, we’re looking at what products we can put next to other products in a way that might yield opportunity buys that we may not get otherwise.\n\nSo the short answer is we’re trying to minimize back stock and keep the place updated not only to maximize sales, but for other, more practical, reasons.\n\n",
"Nope. Texas. Did this happen up there?",
"I've been curious if any stores have a smartphone app that lets me select the item I want ahead of time, then when I'm in the store it helps me go around the store to pick stuff up with the fastest route."
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27iaeq | how come even great, well polished video games suffer from characters or objects passing through each other? is collision detecting one of the hardest parts when creating a game? | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/27iaeq/eli5_how_come_even_great_well_polished_video/ | {
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7440z9 | where do other elements come from that aren't h, he, c, ne, o, si, and fe (elements made in stars) and li (at the beginning of the universe along with h, and he) | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/7440z9/eli5_where_do_other_elements_come_from_that_arent/ | {
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"They were all made inside of stars. The heavier elements were made in much more massive stars that then exploded into nebulae, which coalesced into planets and smaller stars.\n\nThe only elements not made in stars are the few that we (humans) have created in particle accelerators, but those only exist for a few seconds or minutes before they break down."
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3hpnx4 | what are "eye boogers" and how are they formed? | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/3hpnx4/eli5_what_are_eye_boogers_and_how_are_they_formed/ | {
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"Your eyes discharge a mucus which contains blood cells, water, skin cells, snot, dust, and so on. While you're awake, you tend to blink and wipe it away regularly. When you're asleep, this removal process is slowed, and the water has a chance to evaporate, letting the dried out remainder accumulate around your eye. It's called rheum. ",
"A combination of mucus, oil, skin cells and other debris. If you get excessive 'eye boogers', then visit an optometrist or ophthalmologist ASAP!\n\nSource: _URL_0_",
"Optometrist here. A lot of wrong answers here so I thought I would chime in. Your tears are made of three separate layers, a mucin layer (5%), a aqueous layer (94%) and a lipid layer (1%). The lipid layer is made by tiny glands that line your eyelid margins. These glands, also known as meibomian glands, express a little bit of oil when you blink (via negative pressure of the eye lids separating). When we sleep we are not blinking and these glands get stagnant. When you wake up the \"eye boogers\" are the result of these stagnant glands getting their engines fired up and discharging the secretions that build up while you slept. This is very common and little cause for concern. If you are concerned see an eye care specialist!",
"Also why do I no longer get them as an adult? I can't remember the last time I had them but as a child I had them practically every morning.",
"How many of you just wiped the corner of your eye after reading the title?",
"My \"eye boogers\" are yellow/green while my cat's are black, why is that?",
"I thought it helped your eyes stick together to help you fall asleep. You yawn and you sometimes make tears for them to dry and keep your eyes closed. ",
"How many of you just wiped the inner corners of your eyes?",
"Just sat down with my chilli con carne and paprika chips, clicked on this sub to read something while I was eating and this is the first thing I saw!",
"That moment when it's 2pm and you've already been outside and interacted with people and realize you never wiped these crusty eye boogers away when you woke up. ",
"I just call them sleep. like not anything else like sleep gloop or fukin sleep boogers. We just staright up call that gooey eye shit sleep.",
"They actually form all the way around your eye. Sometimes when I wear contact lenses, I can gently grab one end of it in the center of my eye with a single digit and if I pull slowly enough in front of and towards the other side of my eye, I can remove the entire eye booger without breaking it. It itches like crazy but it's oddly satisfying.",
"What are they? Delicious. ",
"They're called eye boogers. None of this \"sleep in your eyes\" nonsense. Because they literally ARE boogers... In your eyes.",
"Ancient Egyptians believed that the brain was the organ responsible for creating mucus, which would then come out your eyes, nose, and ears.",
"It always makes me feel kinda good, you know, when you find one of these on a dog, and you help him out and remove it. Maybe that's why they started hanging around us in the first place. They just don't have the dexterity, you know? All those wonderful things we can do for dogs with our fingers.",
"We call it remela in Brazil. Ear wax is cera (wax) de ouvido (ear) \nand boogers are called meleca or catota.",
"They're actually not naturally occurring, it's dried up ejaculate. Now who's ejaculating in your eyes, I can't say for sure but it's probably someone close to you like a roommate, brother, or social studies teacher.",
"Who else is rubbing their eyes?",
"The boogeyman comes into your room at night, picks the boogers out of your nose, and puts them in the corner of your eyes. That's why he's called the boogeyman.",
"When I went on a road trip a few years back, I drove for maybe 12 hrs straight without stopping at one point. When I finally stopped I looked in to the mirror and I had eye goo running down my face, it looked like pus and was sticky. I never had it happen again.",
"Holler if you wiped one from the inner corner of your right eye just before seeing this thread.. \n",
"When I was young I fantasized about shrinking down and being able to go onto one of these eye boogers and eat them, thinking they tasted like chicken ",
"Am I the only one who rubbed my eyes to clean them before opening this thread?\n\nAlso, I've always called them sleepers."
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41d3vw | how do eye drops get rid of redness? | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/41d3vw/eli5_how_do_eye_drops_get_rid_of_redness/ | {
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"\"Drops that \"get the red out\" contain chemicals that are called vaso constrictors. The most common one that is used is called phenylephrine. When these drops are put in the eye they cause the muscles in walls of the blood vessles in your eyes to constrict. This constriction narrows the vessels and makes them less visible. These can be good drops to use on an occasional basis to deal with acute ALLERGIC redness. If your problem is INFECTION, though, you are doing exactly the opposite of what you need to do. By constricting the blood flow into the vessels you are decreasing the amount of you own antibodies in the blood that need to be in the eye to fight the infection. If your problem is dryness, you are doing nothing to deal with the cause and eventually you will fatigue the blood muscles that are constricting and cause a phenomenon called rebound hyperemia which causes the vessels to be MORE visible.\" [here](_URL_0_)",
"There are a number of different kinds of eyedrops, and an eyedrop solution may contain a number of different elements.\n\nFor example, a prescription eyedrop may have antibiotics in it, in the case of an eye infection. With antibiotics, bacteria that cause inflammation are cleared more effectively (hopefully), meaning less inflammation. One component of inflammation is hyperemia, which is basically increased blood flow through the vessels. So, less of that happens.\n\nIf the problem isn't infection, but is more along the lines of having \"dry eye\", with insufficient tear production, eyedrops can contain tear-stimulators (lacrimostimulants) or artificial tears (lacrimomimetics). These basically act to protect your cornea from dessication either by stimulating production of more tears, or by doing the job for you. \n\nEyedrops can also have immunosuppressants in them, in case this dry eye is caused by an autoimmune reaction to the lacrimal glands (the body makes antibodies against the tear-producing glands in these cases, causing a lack of tears, and immunosuppressants or modulators help decrease this)\n\nThere are lots of reasons for the eyes to appear red. Extraocular diseases (outside the eye), intraocular diseases (inside parts of the eye), and even straight up subconjunctival hemorrhage from blunt force trauma or something. So eyedrops don't get rid of all redness, and you have to treat the actual cause. But in cases of surficial infections, inflammation, or infections/problems with the conjunctiva, eyedrops can help.",
"Just FYI: Eyedrops that are vasoconstrictors (like your typical Visine or Redeyes that are available at any pharmacy/convenience store) are notorious for having a rebound effect. They will get the job done, but once the effect wears off, the vessels in your eyes will become even more dilated than they were before. The vessels were starved of blood, and are trying to quickly get as much back as it can, causing your eyes to look just as red or even worse once discontinuing the drop. People are advised to use it only on special occasions (getting your picture taken, attending a wedding). The best bet to get redness out is to actually to use artificial tears regularly, because more likely than not it's an issue of dryness that causes inflammation. Source: Optometry student"
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3t4330 | why are saline/silicone breast implants used instead of just transplanting breast tissue from one woman to another? like if one woman has a breast reduction, and another needs an implant, can they not transplant the fat removed from one into another? | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/3t4330/eli5_why_are_salinesilicone_breast_implants_used/ | {
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"Because taking tissue from one person and implanting into another is more complicated than you might think. There are all sorts of antibodies that have to match, and even then the match is never perfect, so organ recipients are typically on immunosuppressant drugs for the rest of their life.\n\nPlus, there is probably more breast tissue getting augmented than removed. ",
"Fat cell walls do not repair themselves, and are the main reason for the craggy appearance of scars. Unlike skin or muscle that reattach cell walls, they do not attempt to bridge the gaps created by cuts, abrasions or the like. Fat injected from one person to another would not only be difficult to distribute evenly (cellulite of the boobs?!) but would also never attach to the existing fat tissue. It would ball up, starve, die, be absorbed by the host body and the energy from it would be redistributed as the body normally does; new fat tissue on the hips, belly, thighs, etc. All said and done, all that would have been accomplished is the tearing of existing breast fat tissue that would lead to a permanently less uniform appearance of the breast."
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ejisju | what's the difference between a "front end developer", ui designer, ux designer, and what do they do? | What's the difference between a "software engineer" and "Front-end developer". For example, if someone is designing the code for Google, who is designing the look of the app?
Like take a popular app like Outlook. I understand that software engineers design the code and stuff, but who decides how it looks, where the reading pane goes and stuff like that.
I googled "Front end developer" and was getting a lot of info about WEB developers, but that isn't the same right? Like are the same people who design the look of how Microsoft Paint (where the paint brush goes, where the scroll wheel goes, etc), are those the same people that design the menus for a video game?
Are all those people "front end developers"? Are they "designers"? | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/ejisju/eli5_whats_the_difference_between_a_front_end/ | {
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"First off, none of these terms are an exact science. They are certainly not used consistently everywhere, so I'm just providing a decent rule-of-thumb from what I've seen in the industry. That being said:\n\nGenerally the term \"front end developer\" is used to contrast with \"back end developer\", both of which write code for web applications. The key distinction being that the back end is run on a server somewhere, and the front end is the code run on an actual user's computer (which, yes, does involved the visuals but also generally more than just that). Of note, \"full stack developer\" is used for developers who do both.\n\nIn the case of a program like MS paint, I would likely call that job a generic \"application developer\", and there wouldn't be any distinction between who does the visuals and who does the 'rest': they are usually coupled enough that there isn't a lot of benefit of having distinct jobs handling each part.\n\nAs for UI/UX designer, these are the people who actually make the decision of what the application/web site looks like. They often aren't coders at all, but rather designers who (to put \\*far\\* too simply) bring pretty pictures to the developers who then implement it as part of their design. Generally, they are also involved in user research and those kinds of things, to determine what is a good look for the product. \n\nEdit: Oh, and \"software engineer\" is usually just a synonym for \"software developer\", which is just about the most generic title you can have. In a web-oriented business it might be what they call their back-end developers, but as I said before there is no real specification so it could mean different things to different people. (Of note, you \\*can\\* be an accredited software engineer, meaning you've gone through similar governmental proceedings as architectural engineers or the like, but in most of the industry its really a useless title. Maybe some government jobs like NASA, or safety-critical software like airplanes, requires it, but for most private businesses software engineer == developer)",
"As a student of ux:\n\nWe are interested in the challenges users(/stakeholders) want to overcome with our product, the environment in which they use it, where they encounter problems, how they approach new features/problems and how they feel about using it.\n\nThis is all researched empirically and then broken down into must, should and can requirements, to which we then try to find solutions with the rest of the dev-team and the customer.",
"Good rule of thumb is that a \"developer\" is someone who writes code. A \"designer\" usually does not write code but instead uses sketches and drawing tools.\n\nA \"software engineer\" is just a synonym for \"developer,\" although some people may be pedantic about trying to make minor distinctions.\n\nA \"front-end developer\" is someone who is responsible for writing the code that affects how an application looks. This is in contrast to a \"back-end developer,\" who would be responsible for writing code that makes the application work but not how it looks. For example, a back-end developer on Google Search might be working on code that improves your search results.\n\nMany front-end developers are web developers, but they don't have to be. Someone writing code that affects how a mobile app looks could also call themselves a front-end developer, for example. You could be more precise by saying \"front-end web developer\" or \"front-end mobile developer.\"\n\nFront-end developers may or may not have influence over design. If there is a design team, then they may just code up whatever they are given by the design team. If it's a small operation and there are no designers, then a front-end developer may also come up with designs.\n\nThis is all in general terms of course, things can vary from company to company and roles can be fuzzy.",
"There is a lot of overlap.\n\nBut basically, front end developer writes code and implements a UI, if there are problems with the given design (from the designer) they try to improve it or they send it back. Front end developers might design a website and its logo appearance wise, but we are almost never \"perfect\" at it.\n\nIn smaller teams you will usually have a front end developer that asks an outside designer for help initially (think colours, logo, layout), then continues with the design themselves as the features change, we may even scrap the whole design in favour of something more functional.\n\nThen you have the different \"kind\" of designers \"UI\" and \"UX\", you will usually never find a UX designer in a smaller project, its just not necessary.\n\nHere's and example (Im a front end developer, not a designer):\n\n\\[Unfinished\\]\n\n[_URL_0_](_URL_0_)\n\nI got my requirements for the project and went on my merry way, taking inspiration wherever I found it.\n\nIs it perfect in terms of UI or UX? No. Is it good enough? Yes, I dont need to spend time and money for designers to improve it marginally. Now if youre Amazon, then yeah, you will have specialists for designing and front end developers for the implementation and coding, mostly doing their work independently, you will even have marketing and behavioral experts advising the above designers in some capacity."
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2b8jnv | the parisian may 1968 riots- can someone clearly explain to me what happened? so much literature and philosophy stemmed from it, but i've never understood it. | I've had people explain it to me before, but it still goes over my head. I've even scoured the internet, but have struggled to find a concise explanation. Students were mad... at something? It's context I wish I had when I read continental philosophers like Deleuze or Derrida. I barely understand the 1968 riot at the Chicago Democratic Convention. Thanks in advance. | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/2b8jnv/eli5_the_parisian_may_1968_riots_can_someone/ | {
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"May 1968 was a time of protest in most of France. The President of France, General de Gaulle, had been in power for 10 years. \n\nIf anything, it was the new and young generation coming upon the scene. This generation was born after the Second World War. This generation demanded change in France, but the older generation did not want to adapt to this change. \n\nMay 1968 was almost a month of strikes and just general chaos in the country. Most profited from the chaos as an extended holiday. \n\nPresident de Gaulle resigned one year later as President, and slowly things started to change in France, reflecting the wishes and desires of the younger generation. "
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2rf2a6 | if humans are natural predators, why don't most possess a natural desire to hunt? and why do some feel remorse after taking an animals life? | My conclusion might be because we can fulfill our desires at the grocery store, but I'm curious what others might think. | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/2rf2a6/eli5_if_humans_are_natural_predators_why_dont/ | {
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"Because most of us don't need to hunt any more, and we have empathy.",
"Predators don't hunt because they can. They hunt because they must.\n\nFeed a lion every day and it won't go hunting just for the sake of it.",
"If OP doesn't think humans are still a predatory species, he/she has obviously never gone Christmas shopping right before the holidays.",
"Safari Club International is a large hunting organization in the US and around the world. About 15-18 years ago it did a survey to see what factors gave people the desire to hunt. \n\nWhat they found out in their survey was that if you take young children out hunting with their friends or family, a majority of these people will grow up with a love of the sport and will continue to hunt and be a hunter for the rest of their lives. When they become adults they will go hunting by themselves and will take their children along with them as well.\n\nBut if you take a somebody out who is in their 20's or older who has never gone out hunting before in their lives the SCI found a different result. Their findings showed that only a small portion of these people would become dedicated hunters afterwards. Instead they learned that the majority of these people will generally remain indifferent towards the sport. Although most of them said that they would go out hunting again if it were with a group of their friends, they did not have the desire or dedication to go on a hunt by themselves.\n\n\nThe SCI also included fishing in their study and found out that a person will become hooked on fishing no matter what age or who they go out fishing with for their first time. A person who goes fishing as a child with his family is just as likely to become a dedicated fisherman as someone who went fishing for the first time in his life while in his 20's, 30's or even 60's.\n",
"Why dont we posses a natural desire to hunt? Because we actually do?\n\nWe play games like tag, soldier, small children instinctively chase animals and moving things.\n\nWe have evolved from hunter gatherers, so a part of us is also about savaging. Saying we dont have a dont have a natural desire to hunt is bullshit, because we posses a lot of signature predator traits and behaviours.\n\nThe reason we dont actively chase prey is because we have found easier ways to get food in our world. Ever looked at lions or cats? They are predators, but laze around as much as possible. This is because hunting prey you cannot eat is wasteful of resources (and dangerous, in addition to limiting time to find a mate)"
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w3ya5 | the barclay's scandal and why it's garnering the amount of hype that it is. | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/w3ya5/eli5_the_barclays_scandal_and_why_its_garnering/ | {
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"There's a group of 16 banks that get together to set LIBOR. LIBOR is the London Interbank Offered Rate. This is the rate used to determine interest of a lot of loans - from car loans, home loans, credit card loans, etc.\n\nIf you knew what the rate was ahead of time, that would give you a big advantage in betting on loans, making loans, etc. For this reason, the people setting the rate and the people making those bets are supposed to be separate from each other to avoid a conflict of interest.\n\nWhat happened is that someone leaked emails from Barclay's showing they were trying to change the rate so they could make money. They got other banks to help them (a big no-no) and had the people setting the rate and the people making the bets tell each other what's up (another no-no) and probably ended up costing other people lots of money by essentially cheating with the loan rate.\n\nThey are already being sued by several large retirement funds that think they have been cheated out of millions of dollars. Since that rate affect $300 trillion (with a T) dollars in financial products, this could have a huge effect on the global economy."
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2tx693 | why the quality of anime blu-rays is so bad? | It's like they intentionally add very big amount of noise to every static scene (or encode in multiply threads).
I've never thought that I will see this in almost every BDMV.
What am I missing here?
| explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/2tx693/eli5_why_the_quality_of_anime_blurays_is_so_bad/ | {
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"It depends on a few factors. If it's an older show, they might only have shitty copies to work with. If it's a new show, it could just be low quality shovelware and they don't care about quality control. \n\nOr they could intentionally be putting out a bad copy so that people in Japan don't import it themselves. Prices for media in Japan are traditionally insanely high, to the point where it's often cheaper to actually buy a foreign copy of a product and pay to have it shipped back to Japan than it is to actually buy a Japanese copy. Sending out terrible versions for exports is one way that Japanese companies fight the recursive imports."
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x7c22 | will screen resolutions get higher and higher? | I look at pics from 5 years ago and they almost look like thumbnails. | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/x7c22/will_screen_resolutions_get_higher_and_higher/ | {
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"The sizes are stagnating because they've outpaced content. I've got a 1080p television, and there are still no broadcasts in 1080p - I'm limited to bluray if I want full resolution content. 1440p screens are growing in popularity among pc enthusiasts, but there's no television or movies that are readily available in 1440p, so you're just interpolating 1080p content. As LCDs have taken over both the TV and PC monitor markets, more and more computer monitors are becoming 1080p to be able to use the same manufacturing process as TVs. Half a decade ago, resolution varied drastically with size. 15\" was 1024x768, 19\" was 1280x1024, 20+\" was 1600x1200, plus 1366x768 and 1680x1050 widescreen. Now, everything from a 20\" to a 28\" pc monitor is 1920x1080, with only expensive high end stuff offering a higher resolution. Televisions are the same - a 92\" has the same resolution as a 20\".",
"Resolutions will continue to increase, however there is somewhat of a hard limit for practicality as there is only so much resolution that our eyes can perceive.\n\nTo illustrate this, if you walk up to a brand new TV and hold your face a few inches from it, you can certainly see pixels, even if it's a blu-ray playing. However if you walk to the other side of best buy and look at it, you can't see pixels anymore, in fact you couldn't tell the difference between blu-ray and DVD if you're that far away.\n\nAccording to [this article](_URL_0_) the iPhone 4 can display at a resolution higher than the eye can detect at a distance of beyond 18 inches. Most people hold their phone closer to their eyes than that however, so it's not a true \"retina\" display in normal usage.\n\nTo put the iPhone resolution in perspective, it has a 960x640 resolution on a screen that's 3.5inches diagonal. If you expand that to a 21 inch diagonal display with the same 3:2 ration that would be a resolution of 5760x3840\n\nA current Blu-Ray playback on a 50\" TV is \"perfect\" once you're beyond a distance of 8+ feet. That means that if you sit more than 8 feet away from your TV, then resolutions will never look better than they do now.\n"
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33s9k0 | why is there such distaste for millennials in the business world, and why are many afraid of the future they will create? | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/33s9k0/eli5why_is_there_such_distaste_for_millennials_in/ | {
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"Old people like to think their better its not a new idea its been happening since Aristotle ",
"Ugh. Hippies. I'll never humor a criticism from that generation. Whatever they say is invalid.\n\nI got hired to this job. The guy insisted there was too much for one person and he needed a second designer. Problem is, I put out twice as much work as he did. So this guy 3 years from retirement got laid off, replaced by a \"kid\" almost half his age. I'd hate me too. \n\nBuy seriously, I don't dislike the 18 year olds today, but I don't have much patience for them either. So I may lose my tolerance with the kids being born right now, 30 years from now."
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157b4e | when the optician dilates your eyes and your pupils get enormous, why don't well-lit areas become unbearable blinding? | If pupils adjust their size to the light level, and dilation makes your pupils huge, wouldn't everything be too light to see? | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/157b4e/when_the_optician_dilates_your_eyes_and_your/ | {
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"It does become pretty unbearable.\n\nWearing sunglasses is a must if you're driving during the day time."
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5h87qv | how do multiple elevator systems work? why is one elevator always still while people are waiting? | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/5h87qv/eli5_how_do_multiple_elevator_systems_work_why_is/ | {
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"Elevators have become much more complex with new ideas and technology. At first they were single shafts, single boxes, with living elevator operators. Then automation came in. Elevator operators persisted for a while. \n\nNow there can be multiple cars in one elevator shaft. This works when one company rents several adjacent floors. A lot of traffic becomes local during the day. Using one shaft for several cars reduces the total footprint of the elevator shafts in the building. \n\nLoading and unloading always takes a certain amount of time. At peak times people always have to wait."
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8jtylj | what makes some game consoles easier to emulate than others? | Zelda Breath of the wild can be played on the PC using CEMU, and has been for some time now. It was emulated far quicker than any Xbox or Playstation game. Why? | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/8jtylj/eli5_what_makes_some_game_consoles_easier_to/ | {
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"Usually the cause is the hardware used in the console. \n\nNewer consoles use the so called X86 Architecture for their CPUs, that's also the one used in your Computer, so those are often easier to emulate.\n\nThe PS3 for example used a Cell processor if I remember correctly, so giving PS3 CPU instructions to a X86 CPU will most likely not work, so you first have to create a program capable of helping the X86 understand what it has to do. \n\nOn top of that there is a big chance that hardware tricks are used on the PS3 to make it go faster, which might be even more taxing for a X86.",
"BOTW uses the Wii U’s version, right? I’m not sure how easy it would be to emulate the ARM instructions of the switch. It comes down to hardware mostly. Not too long ago, we just started getting enough power in most computers to accurately emulate SNES. Accuracy takes a massive amount of processing power. Emulators that don’t take that seriously have an easier time, because they can use hacks for performance. The issue with that comes when a programmer ties code to an aspect of the hardware that doesn’t get accurately emulated. This can cause a game to not work for those particular edge cases. \n\nIn an instance where the hardware is the same (XBone, PS4), it’s much easier to emulate or port games between platforms."
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6whulu | why are some mobile games not also available on pc (or any platform)? | And I'm not talking about those games that require touch screen specific mechanics or cams.
There are a lot of apps that are all just point and click. Which is what the mouse is built for. Yet the developers aren't inclined to sell those or make their free apps available on PC, which is practically a big market like mobile's. | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/6whulu/eli5why_are_some_mobile_games_not_also_available/ | {
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"Mobile games are build for mobile hardware and operating systems. While to a user many of these will work similarly to PCs and consoles, to someone developing software for the platform, they are very different. If someone wants to alter a mobile game so it'll work on PC hardware with windows OS, that'll be a lot of extra time, effort, and consequently money spent to get done, and a lot of people come to the conclusion that it's not worth it, or that they won't make the money back by selling on other platforms."
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1ujru7 | what would the world look like if we went with dc over ac current? | What would be the biggest differences, how would our technology look, and how would society be different if we use DC current as our primary current? | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/1ujru7/eli5_what_would_the_world_look_like_if_we_went/ | {
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"Dim, with lots of noisy machines everywhere. DC power is hard to transmit over distance, so you would need more power lines, more substations, more power plants, and the amount of energy reaching homes wouldn't be as great, so popular items would be a lot more energy efficient, but older items would be far less effective (lower wattage lightbulbs, 2 burner stoves, etc) You wouldn't need bricks for your electronics though. ",
"We haven't really chosen DC or AC, we chose to use the ones that make the most sense in the context it's begin deployed. Loads of things use DC. "
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ep1hks | why is 2% inflation rate good, and what would happen if the rate falls below this? | Would people notice sudden changes in daily life? | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/ep1hks/eli5_why_is_2_inflation_rate_good_and_what_would/ | {
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"Inflation means that a dollar gets less valuable over time (by 2% a year). Too much inflation, and money becomes worthless, like in Weimar Germany. The too-little problem is a bit trickier. \n\nInflation encourages people and corporations (and especially banks) to do things with their money, specifically, invest it in businesses, education, or something else. If money loses 2% of its value each year, companies have to be doing something with it that earns at least a 2% profit - like lending it out.\n\nBasically, inflation forces banks and billionaires to stop just sitting on money and instead reinvest it, creating new businesses and jobs and driving the economy forwards.",
"You won't see any immediate changes in your daily life.\n\nThe biggest problem with very low inflation/deflation is that monetary policy becomes less effective/powerless, and the result may be a long economic slump.",
"*TL;DR*\n*Inflation is bad for people who cannot fight for better wages. If you are paid $500/week and the cost of everything increases by 5%, unless you can fight for more pay, you lose.*\n\n*Inflation is good for people who are in debt (as my debt is worth less than it was before) and small businesses (I can get away with charging more and not increase my staff's wages)*\n\n\nI think the best way to answer this is to explain the impacts of inflation.\n\nInflation is good for some and bad for others. \n\nGenerally, high inflation is good for those on strong wages and bad for those on weak wages.\n\nHigh inflation is good for those in debt, but bad for lenders (unless the interest rate climbs) or people with savings earning interest.\n\nAnd vice versa.\n\nExample 1.\nI lend you $500 for 1 year and get 5% interest.\nIf the inflation rate was high (5%), when you pay me back I have effectively made no profit.\n\nI made $50 in interest, but it is still only worth what $500 was a year ago.\n\nThis is great for the borrower who found it easy to pay me back though as their wage increased.\n\n\nExample 2:\nAn elderly couple retires with a fixed income of $500 per week.\nrent = $300\nFood = $150\nSave = $50\n\nBut costs inflate 10% over 2 years.\n\nNow,\nThey still make $500 per week\nRent = $330\nFood = $165\nSave = $5\n\nSo now, the couple does not have the money to cover incidentals.",
"Inflation promotes spending in turn generating more tax for the government, stimulating grown in the economy. \n\nIf there was deflation people would horde their money knowing they can buy more with it later on, leading to less spending, less taxes, and ultimately a recession etc...",
"Inflation isn't necessarily good, but deflation is extremely bad. As others have stated, inflation causes currency to lose value over time. The quicker the currency is losing the value, the quicker people want to get out and spend it. So inflation encourages participation in the economy and the churn of money that keeps everything moving. Deflation causes currency to gain in value, which sounds great, but it encourages people to save all their money instead of spending it. As people disengage from the economy, things start to slow down. Manufacturers start seeing that people aren't buying their goods as much, so they start making fewer goods. Now that they don't need as many goods produced, they start laying off workers. As people see their neighbors losing their jobs, they get nervous and start spending even less to hedge the risk of future unemployment. And the cycle keeps repeating in a self-reinforcing manner. \n\nHigh inflation can have terrible effects too, as seen in Weimar Germany, Zimbabwe, or Venezuela, but it's generally much easier to slow down people's rate of purchasing things than it is to convince people to start spending again once they've stopped. So overall it's much better to accept having a little inflation than to risk having any deflation. 2% inflation is the commonly accepted safe buffer to shoot for.",
"A low inflation rate or even deflation is not good long term. Short term it would be great for the everyday worker but the problem is the longer term effects will severely hurt everyone.\n\nFrom a personal finances level, consider this. Inflation means that $1 today will be worth $0.98 tomorrow. If the money you hold loses value, you are encouraged to do something with it. Be it investing or going out and buying that new phone. Now imagine this applied to companies. If their cash loses value, they want to use it rather than sit on it. This means they go out and buy something that someone else needs to make. This means more jobs for the economy as a whole.\n\nDeflation means that if you hold onto $1 today, it will be worth $1.02 tomorrow. What are you more likely to do then? Hold onto it because it gains value over time. Great! Now imagine a company seeing this. Rather than going out to buy that new hardware made by someone else, they decide to just sit on the money. Why turn down free money? What does this mean for the makers of that hardware? It means less customers for them which means they might need to fire people to keep afloat because they don't get as much business. Now apply this across the entire economy. Now you might be out of a job.\n\nNow this is all theory, but we see real world examples of this. The Japanese economy has faced deflation since the early 90's and has resulted in a very poorly performing economy. It's actually known as the lost decade, which is now known as the lost score because it went on well into the 2010's. During this time the GDP dropped and adjusted wages fell something like 5% and unemployment rates were way up. If I remember right, prior the unemployment rate was at around 2%. At the peak of the 20 years, unemployment was as high as 5.5% and the lowest was around 3.5%. At this point your economy is in a deflationary cycle which is really hard to pull out of. The Japanese government had to take some drastic measures to try and pull out of it.\n\nKeep in mind that all these effects take time to show, especially in daily life. Things will be great short term but when the hammer falls, everyone suffers.",
"There was a podcast that explained that 2% was a fairly arbitrary number somewhat based on what NewZealand used to get their inflation under control.",
"There was a great episode of the Planet Money podcast about the 2% inflation rate figure. It's been a while since I listened to it, but basically the 2% figure was arrived at in a pretty arbitrary way--you could even say it was basically a group of guys pulling the number out of their collective asses. But ever since then, the 2% rate number has been widely recognized as being ideal, even though the methodology that was used to come up with it was hardly scientific. \n\nHere's the episode: \n\n[_URL_0_](_URL_0_)",
"I would like to add to the question. What happens when we eventually have things costing ridiculous amounts of money? In third world countries where there was too much inflation, you could buy an egg for like a billion of their dollars. What about in X years when the USD reaches annoyingly high levels of inflation? Already, we have seen pennies become totally worthless, what's next? Quarters? Then $1 bills?",
"VeniVediVelcro hit the nail on the head but just imagine the opposite scenario. \n\nLet's say there is a 2% deflation rate. Money is getting more and more valuable every year! That's great! Except now banks and corporations and anyone with a good chunk of change has incentive to do absolutely nothing with the money. They can just sit on it and they will make money actually.\n\nEconomies are like water. You want lots of fluidity and swishy swashy moving around. Not a stagnate still pool",
"Inflation is a feature, not a bug. Folks who complain about (reasonable) inflation misunderstand money. They think it is a store of value. It is not. It is a transactional medium. Those who wish that it functioned as a store of value are missing an important point: there is no perfect store of value. literally no one, no institution of any kind, can guarantee the persistent value of ANYTHING.",
"Let's start with fractional reserve banking. Banks originally acted like warehouses for gold (or w/e currency) that would charge you a fee to store your money, much like renting a storage room for your furniture. But, eventually bankers realized that with all that money just sitting there doing nothing, that they could lend that money out (in the form of bank notes) and gain profits from the interest. This practice is called fractional reserve banking, and if you've ever seen _It's a Wonderful Life_, it's the type of bank Jimmy Stewart runs. The problem with this style of banking is that it results in 3 things: a) there is now far less money in the bank than the total that customers believe they have access to, b) because of this, if there is any uncertainty with the bank, a \"run\" on the bank can occur where its customers try to withdraw more money than is available, and c) loaning out money that someone else believes they have in their account effectively creates new money, essentially creating new money. \n\n\nSo, fractional reserve banking carries with it the potential for large profits AND a significant amount of risk should any of the loans default or if too many people want their money back. This style of banking, which many would call fraudulent, experienced problems in the 1800s with many banks going completely out of business (there were some states with laws against having too many branches which would exacerbate this issue, but that's a side issue). So, the large banks got together with government in 1914 and created the Federal Reserve. What this did was establish a government monopoly on currency and essentially socialized the risk of fractional reserve banking. So, while the banks could keep lending out more and more claims to the same money, if anything bad happened, the tax payers could bail the banks out. They essentially privatized the profit of loans while socializing the risk. But, this scheme needed to be explained to voters, and that's where this idea of \"stable inflation\" came from. \n\n\nEconomists like John Maynard Keynes, in an effort to legitimize this practice, started spreading the idea that it was the job of central banks to try to keep prices stable. Before the existence of the central bank, prices _fell_ over time. This was actually a great thing, as the cost of living would fall over time, and poor and middle class people could save their money and its value would just naturally increase over time without having to invest it in a 401(k) or anything. But, special interest groups for businesses would complain about falling prices, and they spread the idea that falling prices made business unstable. \n\n\nWell, over time, the US started getting into world wars and funding ever larger social programs, and in order to pay for all this, they would print new money with their newfound monopoly. But, this would increase the money supply, and people started noticing that prices were now rising over time instead of falling. So, in order to quell this fear without losing their ability to print money to pay for their vote-garnering programs, the Federal Reserve redefined price stability to mean keeping inflation under 2%. Then, once Nixon cut the last ties to the gold standard in 1971, it was again redefined to mean at least 2%. The Consumer Price Index is the government statistic that they use to show the public that they are staying true their word, but it's heavily manipulated to make sure that it only includes goods that result in the final number being what they want. \n\n\nSo, let's look at what has happened with this inflationary economy that the world has been running on for over 100 years now. Poor people are unable to save money because their money is constantly losing value. Consumption has become more rewarding than saving, which has led to our consumerist culture. Big banks and Wall St. have become a black hole of wealth that all money flows toward, artificially increasing wealth inequality. The government has been able to fund endless wars despite the fact that anti-war candidates (at least in rhetoric) have become the last 3 presidents. We have enormous booms where people over-invest into long term projects because loans are too easy to come by, followed by massive busts when those long term projects collapse due to a lack of the actual resources to sustain those businesses. The government has gone out of its way to push banks to give out bad loans like subprime mortgages and student loans, saddling normal people with debt they'll never be able to repay. The bad news is that this scheme cannot last forever. A major crash is coming soon (almost certainly by the end of this year), and it may be the last one that this government can sustain. \n\n\nIf you would like to learn more, here is a short article on [Austrian Business Cycle Theory](_URL_0_), and the Mises Institute also has Murray Rothbard's [What Has Government Done to Our Money?](_URL_1_) available for free as PDF.\n\n\nEdit: And before someone comes in and tells me deflation is bad, it's not. If it were true that falling prices kept people from buying products, then no one would ever buy a big screen tv.",
"Inflation is an important part of good economy, it incentives everyone who has a lot of money, people, companies and corporations to invest alll their extra money into the economy again hoping to make money.\n\nThis prevents people from just sitting on their money and hoarding it, which is very bad for the economy if it happens.\n\nThe main question is as ever found between the two extremes, no inflation and hyperinflation. What is the correct inflation rate?\n\nWe cant have any sort of hyperinflation because then the rich just takes their money and move the fuck away. You cant have no inflation because while risk your money on the market if there is nothing in it for you. Should we guess that somewhere between 1-3%, its all we can do really."
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29vbhy | edward snowden | I dont know why but ever since the start of this i have been totally out of the loop and it seems harder and harder to catch up as time goes by. Could someone give me a brief synopsis on the whole situation with him?
| explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/29vbhy/eli5edward_snowden/ | {
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"dude worked for a govt contractor.....decided on day to leak a bunch of sensitive govt files.....fled the country.....eneded up in Russia when the united states revoked his passport, leaving him stranded.\n\nRussia doesnt seem like it can be bothered to help send him back, so in russia he stays.",
"It the press were doing their job it wouldn't have been \"necessary\" for Snowden to leak documents. ",
"A tragic tale of a man trapped on a desert island. One day his hosts/captors will tire of him and will sell / trade him back to the usa"
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30xz21 | if it is widely known as a failure, why do we still have standardized testing for all students, including special needs students? | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/30xz21/eli5_if_it_is_widely_known_as_a_failure_why_do_we/ | {
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"Because there is a notion that we need to measure success, and America chooses to do so through standardized tests. While there has always been some form of measuring success, No Child Left Behind really instilled testing as a school/county/national indicator of that success. No Child Left Behind is the re-authorization of an existing legislation (Elementary and Secondary Education Act) that provides funding to low-income schools. Standardized testing became the link between measuring success and national funding- if you wanted to be funded nationally, your school/county/state had to perform as such. School are penalized if they don't meet their annual progress metrics, which is ridiculous. \nThere has always been testing, but Bush Jr effectively ensured that student learning and school funding was tied to it. This is BS, because lower performing schools are usually in lower income neighborhoods where parents aren't raising thousands of dollars to subsidize necessary funding. \n\nWe STILL have it, because that notion of measuring success is engrained in our politicians minds. Where tests were once given to determine how much students were learning, or what they needed help learning, they are now just a string of words that don't capture anything relative to the real world. We saw Obama further buy into this notion with his Race to the Top program- those who perform best get most funding.\n\nStandardized tests not only fail to capture student education, they completely take away from what is left. Teacher performance is tied to these tests, and because so much weighs on them, nothing else in schools really matter. \n\nJonathon Kozol wrote an amazing book that captures this and more, perfectly titled: The Shame of the Nation.\n"
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2pdece | why is breathing harder when you think about it? | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/2pdece/eli5_why_is_breathing_harder_when_you_think_about/ | {
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"The way that the mind works about breathing is that it runs on 2 different processes: Automatic and manual.\n\nAutomatic processes include things like heartbeat, breathing, blinking, and generally body processes that are needed for survival. These are things that you can literally do in your sleep.\n\nThe manual processes are things that you can control, but have to learn. This includes things like walking, grabbing things, knitting, and generally other things that you can't do while sleeping.\n\nNow, objects can be moved from automatic memory to manual memory and vice versa. An example with this is walking. When we're babies, we had to move one foot in front of the other and learn how to move each muscle correctly. Essentially we were all QWOP players when we were young. Then, we eventually learned the process of taking a step to where we can walk without manually thinking \"lift right foot. Set it down. Lift left foot. Set it down.\"\n\nBut, when it comes to controlling something that's usually automatic, it generally takes more effort to do, including mental effort. Breathing happens without paying attention, but if you pay attention, then you have to manually start doing it. It's kind of like the difference of using a hand to cut meat when you're used to using a knife. "
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5l0nst | how does electricity running through a filament produce light? | If electric current is just the movement of electrons how does a filament produce photons (light)? Are electrons and photons related in some way? | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/5l0nst/eli5_how_does_electricity_running_through_a/ | {
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"The electric current is heating the filament until it glows. It is glowing just as heated metal glows or a candle glows. This is different from a cfl or led lamp. \n\nElectrons are electrons. But electrons can absorb photons and move to a higher valence orbital, or emit a photon and move to a lower valence orbital.",
"The resistance of a piece of metal depends on its thickness. The filament is extremely thin, so it has a much higher resistance than the other wires in the bulb. As the resistance increases, the heat generated by passing current through it increases. Just like a piece of steel in a fire glows red from the heat, the filament (made of a metal with a very high melting point) gets so hot it glows white.\n\nAll objects above absolute zero emit thermal radiation, but it's usually only infrared. At sufficiently high temperatures it will emit visible light. "
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4w3q1m | my account is blocked for 15 min after i type my password 3 times incorrectly. so how come hackers can break my password in few seconds/minutes? | [deleted] | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/4w3q1m/eli5my_account_is_blocked_for_15_min_after_i_type/ | {
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"There's two primary ways this occurs.\n\nNormally, attackers aren't just entering things into the website's log-in form. Through a security flaw in the site, they manage to obtain the password database. The site should have stored only a one-way *hash* of the password, a mathematical transformation into a string of characters of a standard length.\n\n If you enter a password then what you entered can be hashed and compared to the password hash in the database, but the site doesn't know your real password. Having the database available, though, an attacker can generate and hash passwords up to millions of times per second (if the site didn't use a very strong algorithm) until they get the right one. Passwords that are simple will be broken more quickly this way.\n\nThe second trick comes from the fact that many people re-use passwords on other sites, and tend to sign up with the same e-mail address. Let's say that an attacker gets the password for some random forum you signed up for with the e-mail [email protected]. Losing your forum account doesn't seem like a big deal. But the attacker will then try using that e-mail and password combination on popular banking sites, and if you reused your password, now they've got access to your money! It may seem like a long shot, but in a large breach, there's always a bunch of users who get caught this way and it can make the whole exercise profitable. Note that in this scenario the bank's security was not broken at all.",
"There are a number of ways to hack somebody's account:\n\n- Brute forcing.\n- Dictionary attack.\n- Password reuse.\n- Man in the middle attack.\n- SQL injection.\n- Phishing.\n- Keylogging.\n\n**Brute forcing** is when you repeatedly attempt to log into somebody's account using a randomly generated or incremental password. This kind of attack is pretty slow since it has to try every possible combination. If you use a longer password, it will exponentially increase the amount of time it takes to successfully break into an account. It's also pretty easily stopped by adding a small 15 minute block that prevents logins after too many attempts.\n\nA **dictionary** attack is when you try to log into somebody's account using a password from a predefined list. There's no guarantee that the attack will be successful, but if it is, it's much faster than a brute force attack. To prevent a dictionary attack, all you need is a strong password that isn't on the hacker's list.\n\nA **man in the middle** attack is when somebody sits in the middle of the connection between you and the server. Whatever you send to the server goes through the middle man, who is saving your username and password. Using an end-to-end encrypted connection such as HTTPS significantly lowers the ability for a MITM attack to be done successfully.\n\nAnother way people get into your account is through **password reuse**. Let's say you created an account on Amazon. You then create an account on _URL_0_ with the same email and password, and a hacker obtains the database for _URL_0_. The account information wasn't secured particularly well, and the hacker quickly cracked the MD5-hashed passwords. They now have your email and password, which can be use d on other websites like Amazon. You can prevent this by using different passwords for each website.\n\nA more technical kind of hack is one using **SQL injection**. SQL injection is a security flaw resulting from user input that wasn't properly escaped before passing it to an SQL server. With SQL injection, a hacker could change your password to whatever they want. By changing your password, they have successfully gained access to your account *and* locked you out of it at the same time. There's really not much you can do to reduce or prevent this from happening to your account.\n\nAnother way to gain access to your account is by **phishing** for your login information. The hacker creates a fake login page and tricks you into providing your account information. When you enter or submit the account details, the fake website stores your username and password so the hacker can use it at a later date. The best way to prevent this from happening to you is to check the domain name of the website. If it's not the real domain for the website, don't put your account information in.\n\n**Keylogging** is another way to steal your account info. A keylogger is a type of virus that logs all your keystrokes and sends them to the hacker. If you just so happened to log into PayPal with a keylogger running, the keylogger would've sent your login information to the hacker. A good way to prevent keyloggers is to use an antivirus and avoid opening suspicious files.\n\n**Edit:** rewrote some sections for clarification and fixed typos."
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1ya0r9 | what do maxwell's equations tell us and why are there so important in quantum physics? | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/1ya0r9/eli5_what_do_maxwells_equations_tell_us_and_why/ | {
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"(Sorry for my bad English) Maxwell's equations are the foundation of electric and magnetic dynamics. Maxwell's equations are 4 equations which underlie, together with the Lorentz law, the dynamics of a classical physical electro-magnetic system. They are very important equations as they form a complete paradigm for classical electro-magnetic physics. \nThe laws are as follows:\n\n\n**1**\n\nThe divergence of the electrical field equals 4*pi*(charge density).\n\nThis equation is Gauss's law. \nA divergence is a mathematical operator. A divergence is an indicator for finding out whether there is a source that causes a certain flux or flow through a surface. Like water coming out from a faucet.\n\nThe electric field is the force an \"imaginary\" particle (or more accurately a motionless positively charged test particle) would feel at certain points in space. \n\nSo basically, Gauss's equation means that the net flux/flow of an electric field that comes through a surface equals 4*pi*(the net charge inside that surface). \n\nIt means, that it doesn't matter how the surface looks like, all that determines the net flux is the charge inside a surface.\n\nAlso, it means that outer electric fields won't change the net flux from a closed surface.\n\nThese are some extra points, and I know I don't elaborate and prove their correctness, so forgive me for the incoherence.\n\nThe important thing is- Gauss's law basically means that what causes Electric fields are charged particles. There is a source for electric fields.\n\n\n**2 \nThe second equation is:**\n \nThe divergence of the magnetic field equals zero.\n\nSince the divergence of the magnetic field equals zero, it means that there are no sources for the magnetic field. Or more accurately- thus far, magnetic particles weren't found. \n\nJust so you know- A magnetic field is produced by electric moving charges. \n\n\n**3 \nThird equation:**\n\nThe curl of the electric field equals minus the partial derivative in respect to time of the magnetic field times (1/the speed of light in vacuum (donated as c)).\n\nThis is the generalization of Faraday's law of induction.\n\nCurl is a tad harder mathematical operator to explain, but basically you may look at it like the circulation density of a liquid, or a field.\n\nFaraday law basically means that if the magnetic field that goes through a certain conductive closed circuit changes in time, then it creates an electric field (or more accurately an electromotive force).\n\n\n**4\nThe fourth equation:**\n\nThe curl of the magnetic field equals the derivative of the electric field in respect to time, times (1/c), plus 4*pi/c*(the current density of the electric field).\n\nThe fourth equation is Ampere's law with Maxwell's correction. It basically means that a change in time of the electric field induces a magnetic field!!\n\n\nSo how do Maxwell's equations relate to Special Relativity?\nWell, as you can see, Ampere's law and Faraday's law contain a constant unit 'c', which represents the speed of light.\n \nWith these equations we can yield partial differential equations which represent equations of waves. \n\nWhich means that the magnetic and electric fields are waves. \n\nThrough the equation of waves we can derive the speed in which those waves move. In the magnetic and electric waves' case, they move in a speed that equals the constant 'c'.\n\nExperiments showed that the size of that constant equals the speed of light.\n\nIn conclusion, Maxwell's equations show that the speed of light in vacuum in any inertial frame of reference (i.e were there are no fictitious forces, and the laws of Newton hold) is constant.\n\n\nBut! \nThis caused a paradox in physics during the end of the 19th century and the beginning of the 20th century. \nThat is because, in different inertial frame of references the velocity of an object is relative to the spectator's point of view. (And in other words- each velocity is relative, and not constant in different frame of references).\n\nHowever, Maxwell's equations clearly showed that the speed of light is constant for every spectator that is in an inertial frame of reference. \n\nWhat Einstein suggested was that in inertial frame of references, the speed of light is constant. This causes the time and the length to not be constant when an objects moves relatively close to the speed of light. \n\nI won't go any further about the changes of time and length and explain what exactly does it mean, and I won't explain why Einstein's suggestion settled the paradox, since it's already 4am in here. \n\nBut just so you get the hang of it-\n\nLet's say that someone travels from point A to point B in a very high speed that is close to the speed of light. \n\nThat someone sees himself reaching point B in a certain time t.\n\nSomeone else, that watches said traveller, from the outside, will see the traveller reaching point B in a later time."
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5vnikg | why do scientists not care about certain places like pluto having water, yet care so much about places like mars | I'm guessing they only care to find other life. Well, why not look at Pluto instead of spending so much time looking through other planets?
Edit: Ah I see. Thanks for the answers! | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/5vnikg/eli5_why_do_scientists_not_care_about_certain/ | {
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"Based on our understanding of life, water is one of the important elements of life.\n\nHaving warm enough temperatures is another. Pluto is just far too cold to care about because it will all be frozen.\n\nWe're looking for things close enough to earth that life as we know it might have a chance because we can't imagine anything else working.",
"Because water alone doesn't count for much. In Pluto's case, it's probably too far out from the Sun to support life, so it could literally be made of water and nothing else whatsoever, and scientists still wouldn't really be that interested.\n\nThey're looking for the right set of conditions in a given planet (i.e. like our own), and Pluto doesn't have many of those conditions.",
"Scientists care about life. Life (is widely agreed to) depends on liquid water. So we search for not only water, but places where water can exist as a liquid rather than ice or stream.\n\nIndeed, pluto may have water on it. But pluto is also -200 degrees or something, and so very unlikely to have life."
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9moh05 | what are the alignment charts with “chaotic good” (etc.) actually mean, and what’s its backstory? | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/9moh05/eli5_what_are_the_alignment_charts_with_chaotic/ | {
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"A 'chaotic good' person is more than willing to assist his fellow man, and has no problems with breaking the law to do it. The guy that ignores ordinances against feeding the homeless to make sure no one starves is a good example of chaotic good. ",
"They’re charts of characters according to the alignment system in d & d. The good/evil axis represents moral good or evil. The lawful/chaotic axis represents how much they value the rule of law.",
"The origin (as far as I know) lies in the ttrpg Dungeons and Dragons. It is a model for describing the moral compass of a character. There are two axes: Lawfull vs Chaotic, and Good vs Evil. \n\nLawfull means using a law, system or code as the basis of your moral choices, chaotic is a more fluid, emotional and intuitive way of making moral choices. Good and evil are rather self explanatory, altough theologians, philosophers and other wise men have debated it of course. Mainly, the question is, will this help or hurt individuals. Neutral is just that, in between the extremes. Example, a neutral good player doesn't use a moral code, nor his emotions to decide what is the best course of action. \n\nSince the concept is filled with semantics, many people try to give examples of each alignment combination. ",
"Dungeons and Dragons characterizes the alignment of characters within the game based on two dimensions: Good (altruism, respect for life, etc.) vs. Evil (egoism, desire to harm and kill others, malice, etc.) and Law (obeying laws, honor, keeping some sort of code) vs. Chaos (freedom, anarchy, etc.), with both axes having a \"neutral\" point in the middle."
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et1o1h | why do cigarettes feel better than vaping? | [deleted] | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/et1o1h/eli5_why_do_cigarettes_feel_better_than_vaping/ | {
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"I used to work for the company that made nicotine patches for smoking cessation and was in charge of the scientific substantiation for the advertising. \n\nThe nicotine from the smoke you draw into your lungs is absorbed into the blood steam almost instantaneously and gets to your brain in mere seconds, hence the instant \"hit\" to the nicotine receptors in your brain. \n\nVaping, on the other hand, has to cross the buccal mucosa membranes in your mouth, which means the nicotine in the vape takes much longer to arrive to your brain, hence the lack of that immediate \"ahhhh!\" you get when you smoke. Nicotine gum and lozeges you take to help you quit smoking work the same way. They are buccally absorbed at a much slower rate, which still gives those nicotine brain receptors some of what they crave, to take the edge off.",
"you smoke them farther apart from each other and tolerance starts to fall\n\nalso maybe because of carbon monoxide and other shit combustion products\n\nedit: a cigarette contains more nicotine than you can furiously vape in 5 minutes"
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36wiok | how can a video uploaded 3 years ago at 24fps be converted to 60fps now? | The game I'm watching wasn't even recorded at 60fps, how does this work? | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/36wiok/eli5_how_can_a_video_uploaded_3_years_ago_at/ | {
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"Interpolation. Basically they use computers to fill in the gaps between frames, adding in frames that never existed, but are simply averages of the ones that did. ",
"It's called interpolation. It basically guesses what a new frame should look like based on the previous and following frames. You can reasonably assume that two adjacent frames will not be that different, so you can then reasonably guess a frame in between the two based on what those two frames look like. Interpolation equations have gotten really good these days. "
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fh9jpd | why is covid-19 being treated different than previous epidemics? | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/fh9jpd/eli5_why_is_covid19_being_treated_different_than/ | {
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"The interesting thing about it is that people can have it and just think they have the flu, but can infect people around them before, during, and after symptoms.\nThe main difference between this and the normal flu is that it can be passed from person to person easily.\n\nThe case fatality rate currently is a little more than 3%, meaning that if 100 people get it, then 3 or so of them will die. This is compared with the normal flu which is usually less than 1%.\n\nHowever, for perspective the MERS pandemic in the past (2014 I think) was much less infectious, but has a case fatality rate of 30% or so.\n\nThe H1N1 pandemic is the most recent I remember and the main difference between that and COVID 19 is how fast this new one is spreading across countries\n\nFor accurate data on this and other past pandemics go visit the CDC website",
"H1n1 was highly contagious but has a mortality rate of around 0.2%, only a little worse than regular influenza (not to suggest regular influenza isn't very serious).\n\nSars and Mers have much higher mortality rates but are much less contagious. I believe only something like 10K people have been infected between both of them. \n\nSars-Covid is different because it's in that bad middle ground - it's highly contagious *and* it has a significant mortality rate... in plain English: you're much more likely to catch it than you are to catch Sars, and if you do catch it, you're much more likely to die from it than you are from h1n1.",
"Ebola never spread out of its local region. SARS, while having a high death rate, only had a total of about 8,000 cases and was mostly limited to China, whereas COVID-19 is over 125,000 cases currently with cases in dozens of countries. There was initial concern with H1N1 because it is very similar to the Spanish Flu strain which killed millions, but while it did spread across the globe, it turned out to have a very low death rate (estimated 0.02% of cases in the U.S.). COVID-19 is currently estimated to have a death rate of 3.4%, and around 20% of cases require hospitalization which could result in widespread over-population of hospitals and cause shortages of many healthcare products."
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bwo9f8 | how exactly does our brain "direct" blood to a specific body part, e.g. for an erection? | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/bwo9f8/eli5_how_exactly_does_our_brain_direct_blood_to_a/ | {
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"It, for the most part, does not direct blood. It controls muscle contractions, which can clamp down vessels to slow blood flow to regions, such as reducing blood flow to one's hands or feet when it's cold.",
"Your circulatory system is just an interconnected series of pipes that goes around your body starting and ending at your heart. Like water pipes, you can increase or decrease the flow of these pipes. Your body directs flow by releasing certain signalling chemicals into the blood which makes the vessels (pipes) either expand/dilate/widen (vasodilation) or contract/constrict (vasoconstriction) to allow more or less blood through. Some of these act locally in a certain area, while others will act in a broad region of the body. \n\nA penis is like a bouncing castle. Blood, or air is pumped in and blood, or air will passively leak out. During an erection, your body will increase the amount of blood going in by making the vessels expand in diameter. This means more blood goes in, while the same amount is going out. The net effect is a bouncier castle, or an erection.",
"For the most part, it comes from the release of chemicals that tell blood vessels to either dilate and increase blood flow, or constrict and reduce blood flow. There are various chemicals that do this, such as adrenaline, and different areas of the body are susceptible to them in different ways to give some targeted control. For an erection specifically, the arteries dilate and the veins constrict, increasing blood flow in and decreasing blood flow out."
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7xrjh8 | why do white supremisists adopt the nazi swastika and hitler himself as symbolic of their beliefs when none of them would pass nazi "racial purity" standards? | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/7xrjh8/eli5_why_do_white_supremisists_adopt_the_nazi/ | {
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"You're absolutely correct. However the rise of white supremacy doesn't start off targeting EVERYONE who isn't \"pure\" rather it starts with obvious targets. Then slowly moves in to a narrower and narrower definition. First they target those who are obviously non-white, then the religions that are \"not white\" then the religions who stood against them, then the groups that didn't actively support them, then it becomes those who supported them but think differently because they \"might\" betray them, it just gets narrower and narrower until the staunch supporters realize that they are next."
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1tu8su | how is audio created with only 1s and 0s? | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/1tu8su/how_is_audio_created_with_only_1s_and_0s/ | {
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"At a very low level, any audio can be described as (more or less) how loud it is at any given point in time. When you hear a note played on a piano, what's happening (roughly) is that the volume is getting louder and softer and louder and softer over and over and over, very very fast. When you hear a different sound, it's still just louder and softer over and over very very fast, but it's doing it in a different pattern than before.\n\nSo you can describe a sound as something like \"this loud, then a millisecond later that loud, then a millisecond after that so-and-so loud\", and so forth.\n\n\"This loud\", \"that loud\", and \"so-and-so loud\" are just numbers.\n\nAny number can be described with just 1's and 0's - for example, \"When I say 0, I mean 0; when I say 1, I mean 1; when I say 10, I mean 2; when I say 11, I mean 3; when I say 100, I mean 4; when I say 101, I mean 5.\"",
"The ones and zeroes are used to encode numbers that represent a certain voltage in your playback device. By having many of these numbers per second controlling the electrical output, a varying signal is created. This signal is amplified and fed to your ear buds or loudspeaker, rendering a manifestation that you can perceive with your senses."
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1x79uf | why is it that when it's a really cold night outside, the sky is so much clearer & crisper to see the stars more clearly? [serious] | I've noticed this my whole life living in southwest N. America, & amp; I've always wanted an explanation. Can anyone help explain this to me in detail please? Is it an air pollution/pressure/moisture thing, or something else entirely? Why does this happen? Would really appreciate it :)
Edit: Thank you for your helpful answers everyone! I will certainly keep this in mind next time when it's cold out :) | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/1x79uf/why_is_it_that_when_its_a_really_cold_night/ | {
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"The sky isn't clear because it's cold, it's cold because the sky is clear. Clouds act like a blanket that keep the warmth radiating from the earth's surface escaping into the upper atmosphere so easily. Without the clouds, the heat escapes. This is why deserts are usually freezing cold at night - no moisture for clouds.",
"Because clouds help trap warmth in the atmosphere. They're like a blanket over the sky."
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regmd | how murder trials and sentencing work. | (Obviously not an appropriate topic for a 5 year old, but can someone dumb this down for me?)
More specifically, why do some people that knowingly commit murder (knowingly as in they aren't deemed legally insane) get sentenced to a life sentence or 10 years in prison, but others get the death penalty? How do they decide who gets a death penalty and who just gets a life term? Is it totally up to the judge?
I watch a lot of cover stories about murder trials on TV and I can't think of any specific cases right now, but why is it that a person who kills one other person can get the death penalty, but someone who mass murders a bunch of people will get life in prison or something? | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/regmd/eli5_how_murder_trials_and_sentencing_work/ | {
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"ELI5: Murder.\n\nWell, I'll give this a shot. Sit down, 5 year-old, and I'll tell you a tale. \n\nFirst, we need to understand what **murder** actually means. **Murder** is the *unlawful* killing of another person with **malice aforethought**. Unlawful means killed when they weren't supposed to, unlike when police officers or soldiers have to kill someone. **Malice aforethought** means that they killed the person on purpose, and they thought about it or planned it beforehand. To **murder** someone, you have to mean it. Malice means that you either want to kill someone, or you're being so reckless that you're risking peoples lives, or you're committing another crime where someone gets killed in the process (felony-murder). \n\n*First degree* murder has intent and and planning. *Second degree* murder has intent but not planning. If someone killed someone else \"in the heat of passion\", it's probably second degree. \nIf these things didn't happen, then it's probably not murder. \n\nSometimes when people kill people, it can be something like an accident. Killing someone, but not murdering them, is called *manslaughter*. \n\nIf someone kills someone \"in the heat of passion\" but they have a reason they were angry, then it might be what is called **voluntary manslaughter**. It comes from a situation where a reasonable person might do what they did. This can happen when someone is provoked to kill. \n\n**Involuntary manslaughter** means that you didn't mean to kill someone, but you did, so you have to be punished for it. Not as much as if you did it on purpose, but you still did something bad. This can happen if you make a mistake while driving, or you don't do your job right and someone dies. \n\n\nBecause there are different types of murder and killing, there are different sentences. There are a lot of pieces that have to come together, and those pieces will tell you how much jail time someone has. Did a bad man think about murdering a girl, plan it, find her, and murder her? Can the lawyers prove all of those things? Then he will go to jail for life, or get the death penalty. Did a good man make a mistake with his car and someone died? Can the lawyer prove that it was an accident? Then he will go to jail for a little while, but not forever. \n\nThis all depends on what the prosecution can prove, and what state the killing happens in. Different states have different laws about the death pentalty and sentencing."
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5wo9ao | how can videos that were recorded in 30 fps can be reencoded in 60 fps ? | I was talking about this with a friend, he said that it was still looking smoother | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/5wo9ao/eli5_how_can_videos_that_were_recorded_in_30_fps/ | {
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"Interpolation. Encoding software basically \"makes up\" a frame in between every frame. If you look at it closely enough you can see that it is not true 60 FPS. ",
"The easiest way is you can just double the frames.\n\nFrames at 30 FPS: 123456789\n\nFrames at 60 FPS: 112233445566778899\n\nA more complex method is interpolating the frames by estimating what's between them. If the RGB at pixel X=50 and Y=171 is value 30 in the first frame and 70 in the second frame, you make it 50 in the interpolated frame. An even more complicated method might be to interpolate shapes and motion."
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6jjlxz | if survival is the primary goal of life forms, then why do we age to death? | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/6jjlxz/eli5_if_survival_is_the_primary_goal_of_life/ | {
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"It's survival to reproduction, not survival forever. If something only needs a year to be able to reproduce, then it won't need to continue living after it has reproduced. ",
"It's not survival but procreation. Any organism's \"purpose\" is to ensure the continued existence of its genetic material. Unless you're part of a social species that relies on the group, there's little reason for you to live on after your offspring has reached maturity.",
"You may want to read the book *The Selfish Gene*, by Richard Dawkins. It's pretty short and it's an important book. In it, he lays down the argument that it's genes themselves, not organisms or the species that are trying to survive and reproduce. So the individual creature is just a means to the end of propagating genes. Once those genes have been propagated in a successful fashion, the organism becomes unimportant in replicating and can die off while a younger, stronger, better organism takes over spreading genes.",
"Just wanted to add onto the other explanations and say that a living human past their prime requires resources and acts in direct competition for them with the younger generation, including their offspring. As a result, evolution creating a method to kill off the old is actually beneficial for the survival and the continuation of the species. As shitty as it sounds, that is life."
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38scle | why do humans like pillows to support their heads when they sleep? | Other animals don't need any sort of head support, and if museums are correct, humans have sought out sleep-time head-supporting objects for millennia. | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/38scle/eli5_why_do_humans_like_pillows_to_support_their/ | {
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"I think it is because we can't lay down comfortably if we do not have a support for our head, especially if we lay on our side.",
"I would wager it's for comfort and spinal alignment. It's not as noticeable on your back but when you sleep on your sides and let your head hang lower putting your neck at an angle which in turn puts pressure on your spine.\n\nJust an educated guess from someone not with any sleep study, just someone who has had minor problems in the past with sleeping and waking up with back/neck pain",
"I think OP's point, is that other animals *can* lay down comfortably without aids, while humans cannot. Why did we evolve in such a way as to require outside help for something as essential as sleep?",
"Not a scientific answer but I think it's because we have the option. My dog sleeps with a pillow. And animals in the wild often use each other as pillows and warmth. ",
"I feel like no one has really answered your question. All of these responses seem to be \"because our heads need support\" instead of WHY our heads need support when other animals do not.",
"Our heads evolved to be bigger relative to body size, requiring more support.... But instead of evolving coping mechanisms for dealing with our heads biologically, our big heads figured out head support first.... So then there was no evolutionary pressure to select for a biological accommodation (people survived just as well without evolution selecting for a trait that accommodated this failure), we intellectually solved that problem.",
"Ultimately, I don't think we need them but are instead just used to them. For example, you can support your head with your arm when you sleep sideways. However, now that we have pillows it makes it easier and more comfortable for us to sleep, beyond what we could do before. \n\nAdditionally, many animals do find support for their sleep; don't nests and burrows generally have leaves or other things that the animal rests on?",
"The spine of primates is curved to support standing upright, so it does not do as well lying flat on our back or stomach. We can do so, but it is not as comfortable as lying on our sides. \n\nPrimate shoulders stick out past our head, so when we lay on our sides our heads are not lying flat on the ground (unlike dogs or cats for instance). The larger the primate the bigger the gap (monkeys have tiny shoulders and are very flexible so they can usually just shift their shoulder out of the way). Therefore to support our heads we need something to fill the gap between our shoulder and head.\n\nGoogle \"ape sleeping\" and look at the pictures. You will see that apes also sleep on their sides with their arm under their head. ",
"Hmm i believe we're assuming animals are 100% comfortable when they lay down and that we cannot without a pillow. I believe that if a person never adapts to sleeping with a pillow he/she will find a sufficiently comfortable position to sleep. Our pillows keep our spines aligned for our convenience but not necessarily a necessity. How do large primates sleep? they're fairly similar in body structure to us. (off to look up \"sleeping ape\")",
"Our spines work a bit differently than most other mammals. The changes that we evolved to our spine that allow us to comfortably stay upright balancing something roughly the size and shape of a bowling ball on top of it all day had some other side effects. \n\nOne of those is that our spine is a lot more rigid than other animals. A good illustration of that point is to look at your dog curled up into a circle to sleep, or your cat sleeping draped across your legs. \n\nSo the extra strength that we needed to stay upright made it harder for us to sleep in unusual positions. But all this means is that standing tall was more important than sleeping draped across branches to our ancestors. And losing the ability to sleep anywhere probably wasn't much of a cost to pay for our genes, since our ancestors were crazy smart nest building mammals. If they needed a little lumbar support they knew where to find a nice soft mossy log to cushion the nest. \n\nFor fun, here's a photo of a chimp in a nest. _URL_0_\n\nAlso, on an anecdotal level, it's completely possible for humans to sleep comfortably without a pillow on a flat bed. I did so for a couple of years as a personal experiment. A softer bed really helps it, but I got used to sleeping on my back in about two weeks. Sleeping on my side took a bit longer, but I basically learned to use my shoulder/arm as a pillow to keep my neck in a comfortable position after a monthish. ",
"it is just habit.\n\nI've slept without a pillow on a rather hard bed for well till I was 15 or so; you get used to it. \nLot of Asia used to sleep on bamboo mats on hard floor. Similar for Africa. In other places they have head rests, but they're solid wood.\n\nIt is more comfortable to most people, but hardly a necessity.",
"We did this to ourselves. Silly humans. We are actually designed to lie flat on our backs, like our stone age brothers and sisters. Certain European (mostly) civilizations began using elevated beds, to keep away from rats and the like, who had decided that these new big cities the humans were building were a great place to chill and eat our food. These were made of stone or wood and were soon dressed with cushions, because wooden beds suck ass.\n\nHowever, sleeping on a cushion/mattress is not as comfortable lying flat on you back, as more of your spine gets called in to take the load, whereas on a solid surface your lower back is told to chill and leave it to your butt and them monster muscles you have either side of your upper back.\n\nThis meant that it was now more comfy to lie on your side, leaving the load of your awesome self to your shoulders and your gluteus medius (side butt hehehe). This was good for the spine but your neck got peed off that it now had to support your big bobble head... So pillows...\n\nThis is how we were told it in school, but my friend Larry has since informed me that the illuminati own the pillow making factory and put stuff in our food to make our heads weigh more.",
"My dog likes to sleep on his side with a pillow. Is he doing it wrong? Should I hit him?",
"Also: what do sleeping chimps look like?",
"We are smart enough to create and use pillows. What more reason do you need?",
"One of the main reasons we use pillows has to do with the complicated relationship between our heads, necks, and spines. When a person is walking upright during the day, the head and neck are held in vertical alignment over the spine by a complex arrangement of muscles and tendons. During sleep, however, many of these muscles relax, causing the head to fall backward or forwards. This places additional stress on the neck muscles and vertebrae, which in turn triggers stiffness in the back muscles and spine.\n\nThe solution to this painful situation is to elevate the head and neck until they are back in alignment with the spine, regardless of sleep position. The easiest way to achieve this supported alignment is to use a pillow to achieve the proper angle. When the head, neck, and spine are back in alignment, a person should be able to breathe easier and have improved circulation.",
"Because our Alien overlords who spliced their DNA with Earth's primates existed in close to zero gravity, there fore our heads need to \"float\", so we compensate with soft elevated bags.",
"I remember a question on eli5 a while back about \"why do dogs and cats and other animals like being petted?\" The top answer was something along the lines of \"has anyone ever pet you? It's feels fucking amazing.\"\n\nI don't think there is a much deeper explanation other than it felt good, so we kept doing it...forever. ",
"I think it'smostly the softness, personally I usually sleep without pillow. started after a period whereI often had a sore back/neck, threw my pillow away from the bed one night when I had trouble getting to sleep, and the next morning I woke up without any soreness inmy neck. after thatwhenever I tried sleeping with pillow I woke up with a sore neck, but if I sleep without I wake up feeling fine. but if I sleep on a harder surface, like on a thin airmatress in atent, I do like to put a sweater or so under my head because of the softness, eventhough it will stillgive me somewhat of a sore neck.",
"Not sure if this is true, but this is what I've heard.\n\nAs babies we have large heads that lift are heads enough of the surface to give us a comfortable feel. As we get older our proportions change and without having something to lift our head off the surface, we get uncomfortable. I think the comfort has something to do with the straightness of the spine or something,",
"Lots of animals use a support of some kind. A [giraffe](_URL_4_) for instance uses it's body as a pillow.\n[Big cats](_URL_2_) often use body parts as pillows (thiers).\n\n[Apes](_URL_1_) [More apes](_URL_3_) [Even more apes](_URL_0_)\n\nI think it comes down to comfort and keeping your head away from critters while you sleep.",
"I think the only reason is that humans are used to it. I don't think they do anything great for your spine either. \n\nWhen I have a sprained or stiff neck I find it far easier on the neck to sleep without a pillow. I believe the ideal and recommended position to sleep in is on your back on a flat firm surface without any pillows. \n\nMy grandmother lived a spartan live without many luxuries and often slept on the floor without a pillow. Come to think of it, my grandma-in - law has her afternoon naps on a mat on the floor without a pillow. Both women are the strongest and hardiest women I've come across so far. (must add here even though it's OT: grandma - in - law has a full set of teeth with no dental work. She's over ninety. I'm in complete awe of her for that alone). ",
"I always feel guilty because I like a lot of pillows, but everything I see about proper sleep posture says to use only one or two small ones. I use like four. If I use only one or two, I sleep terribly. What's up with that?",
"I feel like I'm the only one who sleeps on their stomach semi routinely without a pillow. It is almost painful feeling to use a pillow on my stomach sometimes.",
"Why are you writing this as you are not human?",
"Our heads are bigger relative to the rest of our bodies, because our brains are more developed than most mammals. So our heads weigh more when we're lying down, especially on our sides. Hence the idea of a pillow for support.",
"I had this friend with enormous boobs who never used a pillow. I, on the other hand, have next to no boobs and always need a pillow.",
"One of my dogs enjoys a life of luxury and waits for me to put a pillow under her chin, then I do this and she plops down. :| Although she sort of thinks she's people.",
"animals also don't have toilets but they still poo. out species gets the benefit of being able to make tools for comfort. pillows are obviously one of those tools. ",
"My dog loves pillows, and head support. She has one of those beds from Costco with the wrap around fluff-bumper, and she loves to lay her head on it, tucked in with her blankie. If she isn't tucked in? She'll grunt and kick dramatically, so we know she can't get comfortable. \n\nShe know's what she likes.",
"Perhaps this is going to get buried, but I just wanted to point out that all the cats I've had whenever they can use a pillow, an actual pillow (MY pillow, to be specific)...\n\nI say this because everybody is saying \"cats and dogs don't use pillows because of their anatomy\", but from my own experience, they seem to enjoy the extra support, just like us humans... \n\nI have no answer for you, unfortunately, I clicked on this 'cause it piqued my curiosity...",
"What's the deal with needing to put hands in-between the head and pillow?",
"Wtf are all these answers? I felt I had bad posture so I decided to sleep flat one night and felt great the next day. I don't use a pillow and feel way better about it.\n\nThe key is your head is soft so you need a soft mattress (memory foam) so you arnt point loading. Lots of people lean forward but that is bad posture - straight back seems and feels better for me.",
"FWIW, I didn't have a usable pillow for a summer and slept fine, then when I returned home to my pillow, it took getting used to again.",
"Human here I don't like my pillow when I sleep. I would rather sleep with a very thin pillow or no pillow",
"Maybe because our necks are slant and not straight?\n\nwelll... sometimes i use my pillow just behind my neck, and i still fell comfortable :D",
"If other animals had the ability to manipulate their environments the way that people do they would probably make pillows too. My dog uses pillows that i give to her. In the wild they flatten grass in a circle. Birds make nests. It is a matter of ability to make cushions that are comfortable for your body design. Every animal does the best that it can.",
"Our family owns/operates a mattress store so I have access to great pillows at cost. I've owned nearly 20 different high quality pillows. Some good ones and some not so good ones for my sleep style. \n\nI think my current pillow is just about perfect for my sleep style and it definitely improved my sleep quality.\n\nMy wife says we like pillows because we start out sleeping on boobs :-/\n\n/u/Vegesus44 has the best answer.",
"We have larger brains relative to our body proportions. If we lie on our back without some sort of support, our big heads force our spine out of alignment"
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4c0c7r | what percentage of ticket sales in movie theaters go to studios and when do they start profitting from a certain film? | Mainly, my question is concerning when and how studios move into profit on a certain film. For example, Batman v Superman is expected to take in $350 million worldwide (around $150 million domestically) this weekend, but I cannot imagine all of it goes to Warner Bros. Or does it?
I know that it probably is different in every country, so my question is primarily concerning the US, though I would appreciate it if you shared any knowledge about other countries. | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/4c0c7r/eli5_what_percentage_of_ticket_sales_in_movie/ | {
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"Quite a lot. First the cinema will take a cut to pay expenses, which depends on all different things. The money left after in-house expenses will then be divided between the cinema and the studio. The split will depend on what has been negotiated, but from memory the studio usually takes 80-90%.",
"Someone please correct this if it's completely wrong, but as far as I know rule of thumb is that a movie should gross twice its budget to break even.",
"Theatres make their money primarily off concessions. Movie ticket money barely goes to them!",
"A movie theater and studio will work out agreements on a per movie basis for revenue sharing. Many factors can go into these negotiations, such as how well the movie is expected to do or how long it may play. Typically the theater will get a flat fee plus a percentage of every ticket sold. The percentage is usually a sliding scale, less in the beginning, and more the longer the movie plays, the goal is that over the engagement of the film the studio and theater will each get about 50% of ticket revenue.\n\nSo for a film like BvS, Warner Bros. will probably be getting all or most of the ticket revenue this week. If the bad reviews and word of mouth cause it to drop more than expected, the theaters may renegotiate for a bigger portion of the ticket sale.\n\nThis is why theaters have such huge markups on concessions.",
"I worked as a sales/booker for a major film distributor from 1990 to 1992 before moving on to work in development. I left the film biz completely in 2003, but it's likely that film rental agreements haven't changed much, if at all.\n\nFilm rental (what theaters pay to the distributor) is high. In the first several weeks with a new release, it is at least 70% of ticket sales and can reach 90% if a threshold amount of ticket sales is reached. This is called a \"90/10 deal\" and at the time I was doing this, it was standard. Big hit movies would often hit those 90/10 thresholds for a couple weeks before grosses dropped and the rental would be 70% for another several weeks.\n\nAfter the first several weeks of release, film rental begins to drop (also, grosses drop - films nearly always do best when they are first released, especially films released to many theaters, known as a \"wide\" release). \n\nBy the time a film is \"coming off\" a lot of theaters, the film rental is typically down to 35% of ticket sales.\n\nWhile the 90/10 deal sounds crazy to laypeople, it makes economic sense for the theaters, because they only hit those thresholds when *edit: at least some* showings are either sold out or close to it. That means lots and lots of concession sales, where their margins are high. It also means that if they do sell out Star Wars, some people are going to buy a ticket to see something else, because they've come to the theater anyway. \n\nIt was an interesting job for about the first year!",
"Studio gets 50%, Distributor take the other 50% to split with the Exhibitor. The Distributor is typically also the studio nowadays, so the Studio/Distr gets about 90% of it. \n\nThe theatre is in all likelihood losing money on the film itself."
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a7ny7j | why do some cities have enough allotted phone numbers (based on area codes) for 10x their population? | Houston has ~4 million residents, and now has 4 area codes. Each area code has 10,000,000 number possibilities, so Houston theoretically has 4 million people and 40 million available phone numbers. Why the massive jump? | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/a7ny7j/eli5_why_do_some_cities_have_enough_allotted/ | {
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"Well, there's a couple reasons for this. One is that not all phone numbers are valid.\n\nFor example, any number of the form XXX-555-01XX is reserved for directory assistance and information numbers. Certain businesses or universities might also buy as a block entire sets of numbers, so that all the numbers that with the same XXX-XXX numbers call the business.\n\nSo if I only have 30 phones in my business, but I buy all 304-218 numbers, I've blocked out a thousand numbers by myself.\n\nAlso, some people have multiple phones. So even though it only has 4 million people, it probably has ten or fifteen million phones.",
"Those area codes server the Houston \\*area\\*, not just within the city borders. You also have to consider cell phones, home phones, office phones, call centers, business lines, etc. Overall, there are more phone numbers used than there are people. You also have to have numbers available for pre-paid phones and other temporary numbers. You don't typically make a phone number available immediately when someone cancels an existing number, so you are always going to need extras. Many phone numbers are reserved by the phone company and not available for use."
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29a55b | if russia is so lawless and corrupt what are scammers actually gaining by jumping in front of cars pretending that they were hit? | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/29a55b/eli5_if_russia_is_so_lawless_and_corrupt_what_are/ | {
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"Russia really isnt as corrupt and lawless as you seem to think it is",
"Wow, anti-russian propaganda does its work pretty well"
]
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3uk1vc | what good would a gun owner registry do in preventing crime? | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/3uk1vc/eli5_what_good_would_a_gun_owner_registry_do_in/ | {
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"It really wouldn't prevent crime. In some cases it might help solve crimes. If you look at Australia they had a mandatory gun registry and told everyone if they registered their guns they'd be grandfathered into compliance. When it didn't help crime they used the registry to confiscate guns from those who registered them."
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q4u8b | what is "irreducible complexity" in regards to the theory of evolution? | I've read a few things but still don't think I get it.
1. What does the term originate and what does it mean?
2. Why do creationists use this as "proof" against evolution?
| explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/q4u8b/eli5_what_is_irreducible_complexity_in_regards_to/ | {
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"One of the main ideas of evolution is that small changes add up, resulting in big adaptive changes over time. For instance, fish using fins to crawl across land to new mud puddles, fins get bigger, blablabla legs. \n\nIrreducible complexity is saying, \"Well how would a creature incrementally evolve a wing? Half a wing won't help you fly, so it never would have been selected for in the first place. And what about an eye? 'Half' an eye is completely useless, so obviously a creature born with half an eye would not be selected for by evolution.\"\n\nSo, its saying that things like eyes and wings are \"irreducible complexity.\" That is, they cannot be any 'less' and still have function. The conclusion being that incremental changes, as theorized by evolution, would never result in their existence.",
"I love the idea of a five year old asking this. I can't even say it out loud.",
"Irreducible complexity can be explained with a simple mechanical clock. Remove one cog from its interior and it will stop working. This means that the clock will only work as a clock if all the parts are there. Its design is so precise that if you remove something it will stop working.\n\nCreationists use this as proof against evolution on the premise that life is irreducibly complex, that life is like a clock with a special purpose and if you mess the slightest thing up, it will stop working. What they don't do is prove that life is irreducibly complex, they just assume it as a fact.\n\nI see life more like a cake. In the beginning it was made up of water and flour. Then by chance some salt and baking powder was added and made it into a fluffy dough. Later on sugar, whipped cream, jam/jelly, and toppings were added, by chance. And as time went on, what began as a simple dough slowly becomes what we know as a cake.\n\nWhat creationists do is that they look at the cake in it's current state and say: \"That cannot have been made by chance, it must have been designed from the beginning, see when you remove the bread/cream/water/flour/sugar/half the cake it is not a cake anymore.\" Evolutionists say: \"That is true, but it still is food.\"",
"It isn't related at all to evolution. Irreducible complexity is an idea one intelligent design proponent came up with to say that evolution can't explain certain organs, like the eye. It's a flawed argument for a number of reasons and doesn't belong in any serrious scientific discussion.\n\nHowever.\n\nA guy named Michael Beoh (can't remember how to spell it) explained it by saying that certain things don't work if one piece is missing. A mouse trap, for example, needs all of its parts to work. He used this show that evolution cannot _URL_0_ gradual changes how the blood clot cascade, bacterial flagella, and eyeballs could not be explained by evolution. They were irreducably complex.\n\nThis is flawed logic. It's also a negative argument for evolution, and not a positive argument for intelligent design. No scientific journal would publish it. No one gave it any peer review. Finally, the whole idea was publicly humiliated by actual scientists and biologists in the very public Kitzmiller v. Dover Area school board case about teaching evolution in public school. There is a great Nova documentary about it and I strongly recommend it.",
"Evolution explains how things evolved gradually...starting with simple forms and becoming more complex. It is an unguided process without a plan...little changes help an organism survive, then added up to big changes later. \n\nSo if you have a complex biological structure, you should be able to \"play it backwards\" to its simple form, with it serving a purpose for every step in between.\n\nIrreducible complexity is the claim some complex forms are irreducible...that is it impossible to for them to have arisen from simple forms while serving a purpose during the intermediate steps. A mousetrap is a common analogy. Take away any one part, and it no longer works. Clearly, a mousetrap was designed by some intelligence, rather tan arising by chance.\n\nThe IR advocate would claim that there are biological structures that are similarly irreducible, which proves they were also designed.\n\nThere are a number of problems with this argument:\n\n* Just because it isn't clear how a complex system can be reduced don't make it irreducibly complex. Many features, such as eyes and blood clotting factors, have been proposed to be irreducible, but turned out not to be.\n* Even an irreducibly complex system can arise from other systems with different functions. A mousetrap without a trigger could be used as a clip, a nutcracker, or a tiny catapult. Just because a system has a function now doesn't mean it always served that same function.\n\nIR is regarded as an unscientific, ad hoc criticism of evolution holding little merit. "
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1y5mhv | reddit's "we took too long to make this page for you" error message. | You know, [this one](_URL_0_).
At first glance, it seems like a bad user experience to say the equivalent of "we failed, try again" when you could easily automate the trying again or increase the timeout.
Does anyone understand why they do it this way?
Edit: amusingly enough, I got that error when I first loaded this question after posting it. | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/1y5mhv/eli5_reddits_we_took_too_long_to_make_this_page/ | {
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"The general idea is \"Okay, this should have taken THIS long. It's gone far past that, and it's tying up the system, get rid of it.\" \n\n1. Stop doing what you're doing. This frees up resources.\n2. Tell the user you gave up, and tell THEM to do it again.\n\nIf the system just tried again, the requests would just keep on coming. Even buying the servers a half second could make the difference, so putting the need to re-request on the user is a safety mechanism.\n\nExtending the timeout just means the servers can get stuck dealing with the traffic longer, and maybe still not succeed. Gridlock.\n\nAnalogy Like You're Five: It's a traffic jam. You're supposed to look out the window and say, \"I'll wait a few minutes before trying to drive in that mess.\""
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49c58k | why can't we just make the face value of a penny 2.5 cents? | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/49c58k/eli5_why_cant_we_just_make_the_face_value_of_a/ | {
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"We already have a five cent coin. There's no need for a 2.5 cent coin as well. ",
"You hear a lot about this as though the cost of the penny is huge issue - but it's not. A penny is not single use. Coins stay in circulation on average 25 years which which is more than enough time to cover that manufacturing cost. \n\nWhen we talk about saving money by getting rid of the penny it has more to do with all the handling costs associated with it. If a coin is only used for making change (you can't buy anything with a single penny anymore) then it's more trouble than it's worth."
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68edgg | why is all life on earth based on rna/dna ? | I often wondered why there aren't other life forms based on a different chemistery. | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/68edgg/eli5why_is_all_life_on_earth_based_on_rnadna/ | {
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"The simple answer is that it works so well. A system which works well has advantages of anything else. So there are more descendents using it than any other.\n\nOne interesting variant is mad cow disease and its relatives. This is not life as we know it but the proteins are copied. So the disease is propagated without using nucleic acid. ",
"Every macro level life form is related, since their common ancestor had dna/rna, so have they.\n\nWe don't know all microscopic life forms, so maybe some developed independently and aren't based on dna."
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1fqf4w | how do components of electricity work?(i.e. power/wattage, potential difference/voltage, current/amperage) | I've usually tried to understand most things using analogies to everyday life. Before being introduced to the concept of these in an Academic setting, i've always thought of electricity being like Water through a pipe, Voltage is the water pressure, Amperage is the Amount of water, but then what would Wattage be? | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/1fqf4w/eli5_how_do_components_of_electricity_workie/ | {
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"Power is a change in energy per unit time (measured in Watts). A circuit uses up a certain amount of energy. The power is how much energy is used every second.\n\nYour ideas of voltage and current are pretty much spot on. The voltage \"pushes\" the current through the circuit. Current is just a flow of charge.",
"Power and energy are related in the same way speed and distance are related. m/s is how many meters you travel in a second. A Watt is J/s so how many joules of energy are being used per second."
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6cpxor | does communism and capitalism have an end goal? if so what are they? | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/6cpxor/eli5_does_communism_and_capitalism_have_an_end/ | {
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"I would say that he end goal of both is maximum human prosperity, but that communists have a more optimistic view on how properous humanity can get. Total equality is also an important end goal of communism that is not shared by capitalism (not that there is poverty or need in an ideal capitalist world, but some people will still be richer than others even if everyone is comfortable).\n\nI think perhaps the biggest point, though, is that most capitalists would say there is no end goal, this is just the best way to do things. Communists think of history as progress towards utopia while capitalists generally do not, so the idea of an \"end goal\" is a bit out of place in capitalism."
]
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||
2ag0yq | how does one sports team pay another? | With Luis Suarez going to Barcelona for (reportedly) $130 million, how does one team pay another? Writing a check for $130 million seems too simplistic and cash doesn't seem logical either. | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/2ag0yq/eli5how_does_one_sports_team_pay_another/ | {
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"text": [
"Electronic Funds Transfer (EFT) or bank wire transfer. ",
"they play 5 games of rock, paper, scissors and if the paying team wins, the debt is forgiven. "
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802ygh | why can't you martingale bet 1st and 2nd 12 on roulette and walk away with better odds than the house | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/802ygh/eli5_why_cant_you_martingale_bet_1st_and_2nd_12/ | {
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"The general problem with martingale bets is that the exponential increase of the betting amounts will quickly bankrupt most gamblers. Simply put, you don’t have an infinite amount of wealth to put up on the table. ",
"You have about a 63% chance of hitting either 1st or 2nd 12. Anything less than 66.6% chance is still in the house’s favor. \nAlso, a big problem with Martingale betting is running up against the max bet. "
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1prsdh | why are skateboarding and bicycle helmets designed so differently? | Seems like there would be one design for protecting your head best? Are different types of injuries more common on each? do aerodynamics play a part? is it just so skateboarders can look cooler? | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/1prsdh/eli5_why_are_skateboarding_and_bicycle_helmets/ | {
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"Beyond style (and the hottest trend right now is bicycle helmets that look more like skateboard helmets- think Nutcase and Bern- Bicycle helmets are designed to protect against a single hard collision- say you hit a rock while riding at high speed, and then be disposed of. Skateboard helmets are designed for repeated \"oops, I fell off my board\" type falls. A lot of helmets are dual certified for both, and they're the hard-shell, round \"skateboard style\" designs. Skate style (whether dual certified or bicycle only) used for bicycle riding are going to be a lot hotter than a typical bicycle helmet, hence why you see most bicyclists using a stereotypical bicycle helmet. ",
"One major factor is the speed of the collisions involved. Bicycles can go much faster than skateboards with small wheels, so the amount of padding needed to properly cushion the blow from a crash is much higher for bicycles. This is why bicycle helmets are tall; the teardrop shape, however, is purely for aerodynamics. Most helmets, including motorcycle helmets, are automatically deemed unsafe to wear after being subject to one accident."
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4iuulh | if the multiverse theory is true, and if there are an infinite number of universes, does it logically follow that every possible universe exists? couldn't there be an infinite number of universes which exclude one particular kind of universe (i.e a fictional universe like s. wars) | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/4iuulh/eli5_if_the_multiverse_theory_is_true_and_if/ | {
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"You'd have to temper it a bit to \"every universe that could exist would exist\". So if the laws of physics were shared, you still wouldn't get Godzilla sized crabs living on a planet like earth since the environment of such a planet wouldn't allow them to survive.\n\nOf course since the laws of physics could be different in these different universes, that might mean that every possible situation does exist.\n\nAlso the multiverse is just a hypothesis. The multiverse itself might not exist and there might just be this one.\n\nOr there could be a multiverse with a finite number of universes.",
"I disagree with the other posters that an infinite multiverse would even necessarily include every category or type of universe that **could** exist. Infinity does not mean that all possibilities are checked. The set of positive integers is infinite, but there are many more things that it doesn't include than it does, like pi, and -14, and Eva Peron. ",
" > does it logically follow that every possible universe exists?\n\nNo\n\n > Couldn't there be an infinite number of universes which exclude one particular kind of universe (i.e a fictional universe like s. wars)\n\nYes.\n\nIt only implies, in and of itself, that there are infinite universes. Not that all universes are represented. There can be any number of universes not included in that particular infinity, odd as it sounds. Similarly, there are infinite numbers in the group \"positive integers\" but none of them are -1, -10, .353, -1000, or .9999999...... and so on. There are infinite numbers *not* in the group as well.\n\nEdit: Oh, I basically replicated the answer of /u/Cliffy73. What he said.",
"There is a difference between \"every universe that could exist\" and \"every universe that could be imagined\". If universes are split by decisions or actions, then you could have a universe where Hitler was a famous musician; but not one where he could fly by flapping his arms.",
"As far as i see it, not every possible universe exists.\n\nThat would mean that there are an infinite amount of universes that contain machines that can teleport other items to this universe.\n\nAnd i don't see gold raining from the sky, or anything else (except snow and rain).",
"The way someone explained it to me is that there are an infinite number of numbers between 0 and 1. However, on none of those numbers will ever be 2. \n\nSo to answer your question yes there are infinite universes, and no not all possible universes exist.",
"I like to think about that one universe where magic exists (*seems to exist), where every time someone casts a spell, coincidentally something happens to make it appear the spell worked. Of course the inhabitants would never realize it was all just a lot of coincidences."
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3bc7ww | if i were to stand at the geographic north/south pole, would someone looking at me from space see me as spinning around? | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/3bc7ww/eli5if_i_were_to_stand_at_the_geographic/ | {
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"Yes, but not nearly as fast as you are imagining it. The earth rotates at 1000 mph at the equator, but it still only completes one rotation every ~24 hours. Likewise, you standing on the pole would only rotate once every ~24 hours. So you would be spinning, but just very very slowly.",
"Miles per hour is not a unit of rotational speed. The rotational speed of earth is 7.29 * 10^-5 radians per second. An observer in space would see you spin around once every 24 hours."
]
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t2ybo | spherical harmonics | What do they represent? | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/t2ybo/spherical_harmonics/ | {
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"Before we look at spherical harmonics, let's first look at another harmonic oscillation: Standing waves on a rope.\n\nTake a rope and attach one end to a solid wall. Now move the other end. If you hit the right \"beat\" you will get the whole of the rope swinging in a single standing wave. Double the beat and you get two bulges. Triple the base beat and you get 3 bulges. For every higher number of bulges you must put additional energy into the rope (=oscillator).\n\nIn this rope you can also overlay (=superposition) multiple modes of swing, i.e. a large single bulge and the smaller ones.\n\nNow imagine that the rope was some flexible spring and you form it into a closed loop. You can again excite it to oscillate. Instead of one single bulge you got deformation into some sort of ellipse. Add more energy and it becomes shaped like a 3 leafed clover, then a 4 leaved clover and so on. And of course you can superposition them.\n\nWhat you got now are circular harmonics.\n\nNow imagine you do this on a spherical closed surface (like a soap bubble). This surface can now oscillate in modes reaching over the whole surface.\n\nThis is in essence the whole idea of spherical harmonics."
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6o1o15 | what is happening when you zero a rifle? | ??? | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/6o1o15/eli5_what_is_happening_when_you_zero_a_rifle/ | {
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"you are setting the bullet impact at range to match the line of sight you view through the optic. Example: you have a rifle that has an optic that is 2\" about the centerline of the bore, being that there is a difference between the 2 lines (bore, sight), in order for them to coorespond at the desired distance (normally 100 yard or 100 meters) an angular adjustment must be made, these are known as \nMOA (1\"click\" = 1/8\", 1/4\" @ 100yrd) \nMILS (1\"click\" = .1 MIL (~.36in) @ 100 yards) \nThese adjustments will allow for the user to tune the optic to the ballistics of the round, height over bore of the optic, dispersion (vertical and horizontal) inherent to the barrel, harmonics of the system, etc. in order to set a baseline that further calculations and/or adjustments can be made from the systems \"zero\"."
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3f4ti2 | if the earth is heated by the sun, why are places that are higher up and closer to the sun significantly colder than the surface? | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/3f4ti2/eli5_if_the_earth_is_heated_by_the_sun_why_are/ | {
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"Can't explain like your 5 because alcohol but it's because our atmosphere traps heat so basically the higher you go the less atmosphere their is, could be wrong like I said alcohol ",
"Moving up/down on Earth's altitude is essentially meaningless in terms of \"closeness\" to the sun in terms of heat. However as you move further from the surface of the planet the air pressure drops, which does have a significant measurement in your heat."
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3x54rh | what pets and animals think when we're on computers/cell phones/reading and other idle activities | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/3x54rh/eli5_what_pets_and_animals_think_when_were_on/ | {
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"nothing, they have no concept of things we do for our entertainment. Any attempt to say that they do is anthropomorphising them too much",
"They don't really have opinions but they can pick up on changes in emotion and changes in your body language fairly well. It isn't totally hidden that we're interacting with our phones so they probably pick up on that too.",
"My dog gives me guilty looks like I'm neglecting her whenever I'm on my phone too long. *Like she's doing right now*"
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9v6z8u | when a website asks you to prove you are not a robot by identifying storefronts/busses/streetlights/etc, how is it determining you are not a robot? | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/9v6z8u/eli5_when_a_website_asks_you_to_prove_you_are_not/ | {
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"text": [
"Those tasks are not easy to solve for computers without reasonable effort put into making robust algorithms that probably aren’t worth the time for spammers, etc. \n\nWithout such obstacles, websites receive a lot of automated garbage and fluffed up web traffic ",
"Because the other guys didn’t actually answer your question, the answer is that it’s comparing your box selections against an average of what other users selected. If you select what the majority selected, you’re allowed entry. \n\nRobots randomly picking boxes would never build enough consistency to create a majority. \n"
]
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[],
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||
f3ta0o | why does arms crossed over your chest being perceived as a rejection rather than acceptance? (i find it super comforting. if i’ve crossed my arms, i’m actually enjoying our conversation) | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/f3ta0o/eli5_why_does_arms_crossed_over_your_chest_being/ | {
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"The theory is that you are protecting yourself if you've got your arms crossed. Your arms cover the most vulnerable part of your body, your heart and organs. You are most vulnerable with arms outstretched, exposing this area. \n\nThat's how to tell if a dog trusts you, when it shows you his belly... he is trusting you with his most vulnerable side. \n\nSo its perceived as rejection because you are \"protecting\" that area from the person.",
"The arms are placed as a barrier between you and the other people. It is also a self-comforting action (like a self hug), that can signal you are being uncomfortable with the situation at hand. \n\nBut let's be honest, it's all armchair pseudo psychology crap when used like most tell you on tv or online:\n\nHuman actions are complex and nuanced. You have to look carefully, over an extended period of time, watch reactions to specific stimuli, understand the environment and situation.\n\nOtherwise it's over-generalization, which leads to very, very, VERY wrong assumptions"
]
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acfjsf | why does smoke get sucked out the window when you open the front door? | 17th floor, friends smoke in their apartment. with the window open the smoke still mostly floats around the room, but once we open the apartment door, the smoke goes out the window. | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/acfjsf/eli5_why_does_smoke_get_sucked_out_the_window/ | {
"a_id": [
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"Generally, this is due to permitting a flow of air through the building. With just a window open, the only air flow is in/out of the window...and that isn't going to happen very powerfully, without some sort of fan. With a door open, this allows things like wind to generate flow through the building, and push smoke out the window!"
]
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|
1xhdpf | why do i think about horrible things around people i care about? | The other day I was around my dad, and I thought about what would happen if I stabbed him. Why is this? I am not mentally ill or anythings and I would NEVER stab him, but why does this happen? | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/1xhdpf/eli5_why_do_i_think_about_horrible_things_around/ | {
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"text": [
"There is a technical term for this. As soon as I find the information I will post about it. But it has been addressed by many experts. Just can't remember the term..."
]
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[]
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|
3cs7ws | with the recent news of a sixth mass extinction how would this affect us? | If say 100 different species were to go, what affect would this have on humans? (Environmental or social impacts.) | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/3cs7ws/eli5_with_the_recent_news_of_a_sixth_mass/ | {
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"text": [
"If all these species are going extinct I really pray that mosquitoes are one of the next species to go"
]
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[]
] |
|
8mknb5 | why on iphone, when you take pictures it flips them around while on snapchat it keeps them the way you took them? what’s the point of flipping it? | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/8mknb5/eli5_why_on_iphone_when_you_take_pictures_it/ | {
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"I believe _both_ are showing you a flipped version while you preview the picture. They show you the mirror version because that's the main way most people have looked at themselves in their life — otherwise most people would have a more difficult time arranging themselves for the photo because everything would be \"backwards\".\n\nThe iPhone camera then shows you the un-mirrored version, because that's the actual photo. Snapchat doesn't for some reason, probably because it's temporary and no one cares.\n\ntldr: iPhone camera shows you what the camera actually saw. Snapchat only shows you what you expected to see."
]
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||
eq6pup | why can fnger print scanners and such correctly scan my fingerprint no matter how long ago it was since they copied it but my phone fingerprint scanner struggles if theres a slight bit of dust on my fingers | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/eq6pup/eli5_why_can_fnger_print_scanners_and_such/ | {
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"The grooves on your fingers remain the same over time, they don't change their positions, so no matter when you first had your finger print entered it will still always work, however dust, ink and other substance can make it look like the grooves stop in certain places and this can fool the system - _URL_0_"
]
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||
259do0 | why does warm beer make me sick but cold beer doesn't? | American here. Wondering why warm beer upsets my stomach while cold beer does not.
I can enjoy a nice cold beer but if I become occupied and leave it out then take a sip, that same beer will make my stomach feel uneasy.
If I drink warm soda, it doesn't taste as good but it doesn't bother me. I assume the coldness inhibits some of the flavor but when it comes to beer, I don't mind the taste of it.. however, when it's warm, my stomach becomes upset. | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/259do0/eli5_why_does_warm_beer_make_me_sick_but_cold/ | {
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"Assuming it is not spoiled, and that you have no allergies (as the cold beer not affecting you shows) it is most likely psychological. ",
"because you're likely american and your beer is urine to begin with\n\nwhich\n\nwhen chilled\n\ndoesn't reek nearly as much "
]
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[],
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fdyxs8 | why do some cheap usb cables actually *discharge* the phone? how does that even work, even if the phone shows charging? | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/fdyxs8/eli5_why_do_some_cheap_usb_cables_actually/ | {
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"text": [
"None of them discharge the phones. They're just charging very slow and your phone is running out of battery faster than it's being charged."
]
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||
475zps | do astronauts still experience "weightlessness" out of earth's orbit? | I understand that astronauts and cosmonauts experience "weightlessness" in orbit due to essentially being in continuous freefall. But if they were say travelling to Mars, would they still experience that same weightlessness, or would they be able to stand and move around on their ship due to them travelling in a straight line and same speed and not freefalling towards Earth?
edit: for clarification, I am referring to the "microgravity" state when I say weightlessness! | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/475zps/eli5_do_astronauts_still_experience/ | {
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"Yes you can think of it that astronauts experience weightlessness in orbit because they are in a freefall, and their sideways speed is so large that they are falling sideways which keeps them from entering the atmosphere (and slowing down).\n\nAstronauts travelling to Mars would be in orbit around the sun, so the same principle would apply (they would also be weightless).\n\nYou said they would be at the same speed, which means no acceleration, but if there was then they would feel the force of their engines, which would feel like gravity.",
"The question is about what they're feeling when astronauts were **not** in orbit - for example, when transiting to Mars. Even though they're not in orbit, they're still on a ballistic trajectory after the engines stop, and so they're still in free fall and feel weightless. \n\nLet's say, for argument's sake, that the ship is pointing away from Earth, but it still feels some of the Earth's gravity: the result is a deceleration of the ship. Because the ship is not resisting this deceleration, the astronauts would not feel anything as it happened: they're still in free fall. If the ship slowed to a stop and started falling back to Earth, they *still* wouldn't feel it. You don't feel weight because of gravity alone, you feel weight when you *resist* gravity. \n\ntl;dr: anything in a \"free fall\" ballistic trajectory, not firing engines or experiencing resistance, is weightless. This is as true of interplanetary motion as it is of orbits. "
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1vdtxf | after having their first large-scale success, why don't all musicians produce their own albums? | Wouldn't this be like cutting out the middle man? They already have the fan base, it seems they could make substantially more money this way. | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/1vdtxf/eli5_after_having_their_first_largescale_success/ | {
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"text": [
"Producers also manufacture and distribute the physical (and digital) media that music comes on.\n\nThose resources can be pretty expensive, so it's cheaper (or just easier) to have another company do it for you.",
"Its not easy to do. Much easier to sign a contract and have somebody else deal with the complex stuff so you can focus on your music."
]
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31l3pe | is dying in my sleep actually painless? | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/31l3pe/eli5is_dying_in_my_sleep_actually_painless/ | {
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"We think so. The actual answer is, nobody knows.",
"How would we know? It's not like we can ask someone who actually died how it felt.\n\nIt seems so and there isn't much reason to think it's painful (in most cases, there are always exceptions)"
]
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4h1nz0 | how do animals know how to build stuff. | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/4h1nz0/eli5_how_do_animals_know_how_to_build_stuff/ | {
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"text": [
"It's just in their DNA. \n\nEven now, science can't fully explain the phenomena we call \"instincts\", even though we can see them in action, and have them ourselves."
]
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1l9525 | why do asians usually have no body hair and arabs have a lot? | Im talking about the chinese, koreans etc.
Edit: I'm talking about the Yellow race, not all asians as Arabs are also considered Asians. | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/1l9525/eli5why_do_asians_usually_have_no_body_hair_and/ | {
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"Some anthropologists believe that Mongoloids (Chinese, Japanese, Pacific Islanders, Eskimos, etc) evolved to have less hair to keep clean while wearing heavy clothes and furs during the ice age. Having less hair allowed them to be clean for longer periods of time without bathing. The cleaner you are, the more likely you'll get to have sex. It's an evolutionary benefit of paedomorphism. \n\nEdit: I'm not claiming this is true, I'm just saying that's what some anthropologists believe. I remembered reading or hearing about it somewhere and found this in Wikipedia.\n\n_URL_1_\n\nWhich sources this:\n\n_URL_0_\n\nA few people object to the term Mongoloid, because it can be used in a derogatory way. But the term is still in use in an anthropological sense to describe peoples that migrated through Siberia and eventually became East Asian, Southeast Asian, Pacific Islander, Native American, etc. I apologize for using that term, but I really don't know of a more PC term that is equivalent. ",
"This is quite a mystery, but there are a few theories. \n\nFirst of all, in a sandy environment, Hairs are good to protect the skin, also, sand increases friction on your skin, hairs decreases it: When you got no hairs on your skin, put sand on it and rub it, it will start to hurt pretty soon. With hairs, the sand gets trapped in it, and it won't hurt that much. So this is why people from deserts are hairy.\n\nWhy asians don't have body hair is harder, one theory is the water-ape-theory: Some scientist believe, that mankind lived quiet a while in water or at least a good amount of their time in it. In Water, there is no fur needed, as you can see when looking at dolphins or other aquatic mammals (god, i nearly have to check my Dictionary for every single word...). So it might be, that our ancestors lost their body hair, and arabian people regained it because of living in a sandy environment.\n\nAnother possibility to lose body hair is a really cold envirenment: Body hair attracts water particles, which start to freeze and therefore start cooling this bodypart.\n\n*Edit*\nYou might consider that the climatic zones changed during man's history, and that ascendants of asian people lived in a much colder environment than today. Also, not only asians have little body hair, the indigenous people of America don't have any body hair at all (which is explained due to they are descendants of asian people, coming to america over the bering-bridge during the ice age)\n\n*edit the second*\nPlease note that english isn't my native tongue, which is why i got huge problems turning my arguments into proper and reasonable language. ",
"You are looking for a reason but that is the cool thing about genetics. \n\nSometimes there is no reason! Some people who had less body hair had lots of sex and their kids did the same thing and their genetics became the dominant set in a somewhat isolated subset of humans.\n\n\n**Reasons?** Everything everyone says in this regard is a total guess.",
"A theory (which to my knowledge seems to be purely speculative) suggests that body hair protects humans from blood-sucking parasites by letting us detect them faster, and reducing the risk of contracting diseases. Since these parasites are very abundant in the tropics, peoples of these regions evolved to retain their bodily hair follicles. Hence Arabs, Indians, etc. have more hair.",
"I read (I think it was in the book \"The Hand\" but I'm not 100% certain), that they believed that the Neanderthals (who were in Europe, mostly) interbred with the Cro-magnon (who some consider to be modern humans). As Neanderthals didn't live in Asian, this didn't occur here. Thus, the hairy-ness comes from hairy Neanderthals.\n\nAlso, Neanderthals were hairy because when they were around and where they were around, it was very, very, gold.\n\nRandom: while writing this, I learned that they are \"cro-magnon\" not \"cro-magnum.\" I'm sure I sounded terribly stupid in anthropology class.",
"Purely speculative but...\n\nSoutheast Asia is a hot and humid climate, and a result of that is that nightime temperatures are not much cooler than daytime temperatures. Body hair is therefore a bad thing throughout the summer months.\n\nThe middle east is a hot and dry climate, and with less moisture in the air to retain heat, the temperature drops significantly over night. So, even over the summer, body hair is beneficial over night. \n\nEdit: Also, in humid climates evaporative cooling through sweating is less effective. Hair also hinders the process, so having very little hair is an advantage. In dry climates, sweating is more effective, so body temp can be regulated effectively enough even with some extra body hair, which is of benefit during the winter and cold nights.",
"if you want to know why from the genetic point of view, probably because their genes promote hair growth in a different way. If you want to know why their genes promote hair growth in a different way, it could be either that\n\n1. something in the environment selected hairy people over non-hairy (or viceversa), or\n2. something in the environment selected some characteristic which is not amount of hair, but it's related in its biology to the amount of hair (e.g. being resistent to an illness due to a gene that, in addition to giving you resistance to the illness, it also promotes indirectly hair growth), or\n3. by chance, through genetic drift of a group of people who started hairy and became the predominant ones just by accident, it could have been the other way around.\n\ngenetic drift and selection are two components of variation in a population. sometimes they cancel out, sometimes they don't. The difference is that genetic drift variation eventually loses on the long run, and it's less and less important as the size of the population increases.\n",
"Basically, many of the distinguishing features of East-Asian people have recently been linked to a single gene mutation. These include: smaller boobs, less hair, more sweat and tighter/larger eye-lids.\n\nIt is believed that the reason this new gene variation succeeded was because it makes you sweat more, so you have better heat regulation.\n\nWhether this helped you survive until sexual maturity, (and therefore pass on the gene), or made you more sexually attractive, (maybe ancient Oriental folk liked a sweaty betty), is left up to your own speculation.\n\nSource: _URL_1_\n\nTherefore, speculation about why East Asian people look the way they do is largely inaccurate as it seems to be all linked to the survival and prosperity of a single gene/allele. Therefore there may be no environmental 'reason' why they have narrower eyes, it is merely a side effect of an otherwise useful gene.\n\nEDIT 1: When I say 'less hair', it is actually thicker hair but more sparse. \nAlso, here is a better link: _URL_0_\n\nEDIT 2: After lurking for years, this is the second thing I ever posted on reddit, so I feel like a boss right now. Thank you for the mild validation.\n\nEdit 3: It makes me feel powerful to add edits. Also I am 25, British, and my girlfriend of 6 years is Filipino, in case that is relevant to anyone :)\n\nEdit 4: To the OP /u/h04 I trust that you mean no harm and are simply seeking knowledge about a sensitive subject, but I strongly recommend you never say \"The Yellow Race\" again. Also, the very nature of you question is somewhat racist in its structure. Comparing \"Arabs\" to \"Asians\" is making 2 single statements about over 2 billion people. There is great genetic diversity in these groups and no one thing can be accurately said about either.",
"The EDAR mutation was identified as a possible cause to east Asian hair characteristics. There was a cell paper on this a few months ago where they put this mutation in mice and simulated some of these changes. The functions of this gene is not entirely clear, but it affects hair thickness, breastfeeding duct density in females, teeth shape. This is just the tip of the iceberg but it might be as important as lactase persistence in Indo-Europeans in conferring some survival advantage during recent human evolution.\n_URL_0_",
"I believe it is due to natural selection. Hotter areas benefits from body hair- the notion that hair makes u hotter is wrong, it protects you from direct sun exposure and you sweat which cools your temperature down. Thus Africans, middle easterns have more body hair than people in cold areas. of course this has been changing slowly due to traveling, technology where you do not need to depend on body hair to cool you down!, clothing , racial mixing etc..",
"TIL that hair on men is like boobs to women. Those who have alot want less those who have less want more. ",
"Also, for your information, Arab is the wrong term to use in this case, the geographical term \"Middle Eastern\" would suit better as afghans, persians, pakis, indians (etc.) aren't arabs.",
"A lot of phenotypical variation in modern humans is credited to the [Founder Effect](_URL_0_). I'm very suspect of explanations that try to draw on environmental reasons. Genetic mutation is so random, the Founder Effect provides a much more reasonable and appropriately random analyses of the phenomenon of genetic variation in humans.",
"I remember reading that some races have less hair than others primarily due to how early they adopted clothing to deal with temperate climates. Peoples that have long lived in climates that required clothing for warmth have been losing their body hair for more generations.\n\nAs the Asian peoples you mentioned migrated into Asia from the middle east, they had to contend with Himalayan cold fronts and higher latitudes which required them to adopt clothing very early in order to survive.\n\nThe people of the middle east didn't require clothing until desertification due to climate change altered the once Mediterranean climate of the fertile crescent into the much harsher environment it is today. That's why people from Mediterranean countries are often some of the hairiest, the lack of dramatic temperature variations meant that they never needed clothes. \n\nAfricans are the exception here because they never needed clothing yet still lost most of their body hair. In their case, they lost their body hair as a means to more effectively cool themselves in the extreme and relentless heat of their environment.\n\n",
"Is this really how you people talk to 5 year olds? \n\nArab here, and while technically Asian, I think I get the distinction you're trying to make. \n\nWhile I can't speak for my continental cousins, I can confirm I'm hairy. Including my poop hole, which I can only assume is to keep out the sand. \n\nI also have big bushy, almost Eugene Levyish eyebrows. If I scowl a bit, they shade my eyes from the sun. That's why my people are always looking so pissed. "
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"http://books.google.co.id/books/about/Prehistoric_Mongoloid_dispersal.html?id=9SQSAQAAIAAJ&redir_esc=y",
"http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mongoloid#Features"
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"http://forwhattheywereweare.wordpress.com/2013/02/16/genetic-origin-of-east-asian-thicker-hair-denser-sweat-glands/"
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"http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/m/pubmed/23415220/"
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2foke9 | why do we shit in clean drinkable water? | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/2foke9/eli5_why_do_we_shit_in_clean_drinkable_water/ | {
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"Because the water will be recycled and the cost of implementing two different plumbing systems would be extremely high.",
"deepduck's right. the cost of having two piping systems, one for sanitized, another for non sanitized doesn't make it worth it. because water is so cheap.\n\nof course...california might rethink that",
"In addition to what other people have pointed out (you don't want to pump two separate plumbing systems through your house, one sanitized, the other not), there are products on the market designed to reduce waste this way. For example, you can buy toilets with sinks mounted on top, or you can pipe your sink into your toilet tank so that you're flushing with the same water you used to wash your hands. ",
"Some people don't. Grey water is in use in some countries. \nWater left over from dishes or washing machines.",
"I've thought about ocean-front areas maybe using a saltwater plumbing system for their sewage, but again, it'd be really expensive to build a whole second set of pipes.\n\nIf you're concerned about water conservation, try flushing less. Remember, \"if it's yellow, let it mellow. If it's brown, flush it down.\" No reason to flush if it's just pee in there, you're gonna be back in an hour to pee in it again, and that's two flushes where just one would have sufficed. Also, whenever possible, pee into grass or bushes or what not. That's zero flushes, baby. ",
"All the water you've ever drank has been drank and pissed out countless times by other organisms, and fish have had sex in it.",
"wait.. toilet water is drinkable?? :s"
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9ncg0f | how to not become homeless | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/9ncg0f/eli5_how_to_not_become_homeless/ | {
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"Get a job, if you can't drive, walk or use public transportation. Find a cheap apartment you can afford with your income (personal finance sub can help with figuring out budgets). Then when you have that situated find some transportation. Doesn't have to be nice, just a car, then get a license. Then look around for better-paying jobs now that you have transportation. ",
"**Post Secondary education:** This does not need to be university. It could be an apprenticeship, specialized training, whatever. Just something that lets you stand out from the other 1, 000, 000 people looking for the same job. \n\n**Acquire gainful employment:** Get a job that allows you to support yourself. This should be full time and it should be secure. Bonus points if you like what you do.\n\n**Set a budget and stick to it:** Live within your means. If you make 1500/month you should not be spending 1000 on living expenses. Check /r/personfinance for more info on that. \n\n**Work hard. Be smart.**",
"This can apply to any situation from work, to love, to homelessness, look for a mentor. Find someone who has achieved what you're looking for and then ask then how they did it. Not everyone is receptive to being a mentor so don't get discouraged if they don't want to help you, just move on to the next person. In order for people on the internet to give you advice they're going to need to know a lot more about you as everyone's situation is unique. ",
"Make sure you have an income greater than your expenses, pay your bills first and don't fall down the rabbit hole of taking loans. Simple as that! ",
"Get a job that pays $12/hr or more. Literally any job. If you're not a felon, can piss clean on a drug test, and present yourself as clean & willing to work you shouldn't have too hard of a time. \n\nIf you're not living in a very urban area you're going to need to learn how to drive. For that lean on friends and family then go take the test. Uber/beg rides until you get your first couple of paychecks to purchase a car with credit or cash. \n\nIf you want to think long-term, consider picking up a trade in a union. They will pay for your training and get you up to $25/hr pretty quickly. Within 4-5 years you'll have real skills and the freedom to start your own business if you so choose. \n\nAlternatively, consider the Military. They've been taking teens who don't know what to do with their lives since the beginning of time. You'll acquire skills, leave with real world experience, and have the option for paid college education. \n\nFrom there, you're an adult. "
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18h22x | why don't police departments all over the united states just up the prerequisites, the salaries, and the training to become a cop. | Redditors are always bitching about thugs, idiots, and criminals in the police departments that don't know what they're doing and sometimes take very rash actions that is shown by the media.
Although I do agree that some police officers, LEOs, sheriffs etc. are just legitimately dumb and bad employees (they're in every field of work), they're a dime a dozen in a batch of reasonable cops. So, to pick out the bad apples early on before giving them a badge, why not just up the requirements and benefits of being a police officer and working for the civil service.
Like having an Associates or Bachelor's degree before applying, add 10k-20k to the average annual salary, and having a physical fitness test to keep them in shape instead of letting themselves go. (overweight cops)
I'm just throwing ideas out there, but why not do this? Or, how come it doesn't happen?
**IMPORTANT: NO ANTI-COP CIRCLEJERK PLEASE! LET'S ACT LIKE MATURE ADULTS HERE AND NOT LIKE THE CHILDREN IN PLACES LIKE** /r/Bad_Cop_No_Donut !!!
**EDIT 1:** Forgot to put "?" in title, SUE ME!
**EDIT 2:** Smart people could still be just as bad, thanks /u/sandshadedutchman.
**EDIT 3:** If you have you're own solution, we'd love to hear your ideas! | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/18h22x/eli5_why_dont_police_departments_all_over_the/ | {
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"You're talking about raising the bar to become a police officer. That won't help. You can never raise the bar high enough to prevent all bad apples (in part because some bad apples will be extremely proficient and intelligent, and because some bad apples started off as good apples).\n\nWhat you have to do is be able to quickly *react* to problems. Today, in too many cases, that reaction amounts to a coverup or a slap on the wrist. Stronger and more forceful reactions to problems would decrease their frequency.\n\nWhat police organizations need is (a) videotaping of everything, and (b) independent civilian oversight boards that have complete authority to discipline officers and investigate all departmental records (email, video, etc). ",
"It's not the bad apples, it's the culture. ",
"The answer is that essentially providing someone with the power a cop has to destroy and save lives with what are essentially arbitrary decisions you automatically introduce a level of corruption. It isn't that they are necessarily bad but they see these things day in and out an encounter with a law enforcement officer may be a big event in your life but to him it's just another day. Decisions he makes may have major impact on your life are just one of a hundred similar decisions that they make in a single shift. They hero sometimes in reality sometimes just within the context of their own story. There is no good answer to this problem when you give someone the power to ruin people's lives they will and when they can use that power to do good they sometimes will. Ultimately they are human.",
"Increasing standards won't work for a very simple reason. Being in law enforcement means holding a postion of power. It's the POWER that attracts a lot (but not all) of people to join. It's the people that are power hungry that push the line and cross boundaries because well, they have hte shiney badge and can do what they want. \n\nThese people can be very congenial if they want. They can change personas as the flip of a coin. So it may look like they are there to \"serve and protect\" but in all actuality, it's simply the power that they are after. (cross post a question in /r/psychology about power and control in different areas for a deeper insight into it)\n\n\nThe money is more difficult to make happen because well, taxes and politics are a bitch. The lack of pay for putting your life in danger isn't much incentive to be an honest cop."
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xb5w1 | the complete process of home brewing beer. | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/xb5w1/eli5_the_complete_process_of_home_brewing_beer/ | {
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"First, you boil grains (wheat, barley, oat, whatever the specific beer calls for) and hops, as well as whatever spices you might be adding. You boil this for a while to get the starches and sugars out of the grains and into the liquid (this is food for the yeast that will produce alcohol). When you're done boiling it, you strain and cool the mixture until it is warm but not hot, and add yeast. Then you transfer this mix from the pot to a sterile fermentation chamber (normally a carbouy with a one-way air valve) and you'll let that ferment for a while (couple days to a week) while the yeast convert those sugars to alcohol. Then depending on the beer you may either siphon that into a secondary fermentation chamber (typically a glass carbouy with a valve) for a few weeks, or will skip straight to bottling. When bottling, you siphon the beer off the top of the fermentation chamber without disturbing the sediment at the base, then cap the bottles. You may add additional yeast at this point in order to carbonate the beer in the bottle (i.e. to make it fizzy). Then you let it sit in the bottles in a cool area for a few more weeks until it's ready to drink.\n\nThen you drink it."
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2ch0ty | how is it possible that canned/pouched tuna can have an expiration date of 2017, yet still be safe/healthy? | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/2ch0ty/eli5_how_is_it_possible_that_cannedpouched_tuna/ | {
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"The tuna is sealed and pasteurized, if not sterilized. If there's nothing in there to grow and produce toxins it could presumably last forever. Sometines the consume by or sell by date isn't so much about safety as it is about food quality. The taste, color,or texture may degrade over the years, but if the can is properly sealed and sterilized, it'll be perfectly safe to eat."
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qm7ws | having to turn your head and cough during a physical? | What is the doctor actually looking for in your Testicles when he asks you to turn your head and cough? | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/qm7ws/eli5_having_to_turn_your_head_and_cough_during_a/ | {
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"The doctor is checking for a hernia (usually an inguinal hernia) which is when a part of your belly pokes through where it shouldn't.\n\nCoughing can make it more noticeable. Turning your head prevents you from coughing on the doctor.",
"Apparently the \"turn your head\" part of it is just so that you don't cough on your doctor."
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54bvsg | why do we get tired when doing something boring/repetitive ? | By tired I mean that we feel sleepy. | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/54bvsg/eli5_why_do_we_get_tired_when_doing_something/ | {
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"Maybe the lack of stimulation lets sleepiness set in. Rather than thinking of it as making you sleepy, think of is as not making stimulating you or making you alert"
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196ws2 | if china is communist, and the u.s. is very anti-communist, why does the u.s. withhold a good relation with them. how is it different than say, cuban communism? | Enlighten me guys. | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/196ws2/eli5_if_china_is_communist_and_the_us_is_very/ | {
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"Because blocking trade and travel with China would destroy our economy. Cuba is economically insignificant in comparison.\n\nThey're not really completely \"communist\" anymore though. They're progressing on their own towards more capitalist ideas.",
"Cuba was very much so an ally of the USSR (that's the name for Russia back when they were communists) back during the Cold War (that was the period between the end of War World II and the fall of the USSR). China, however, was very independent of the USSR and didn't always agree or go along with what the USSR. So because they weren't tied to our main rival during the Cold War, relations with China were better than with Cuba.",
"China isn't communist (totalitarian, perhaps), and the US isn't really anti-Communist (in the McCarthyist mode of anti-Communism)."
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tyzmv | 5.1 sound within headphones. | Hey guys. Can someone explain how 5.1 sound work within headphones? How can there be two components (left and right ear) yet there are an odd number of 'speakers'?
Here's and example:
_URL_0_ | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/tyzmv/eli5_51_sound_within_headphones/ | {
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"Each ear has 3 speakers. Center, front and back. They are placed to simulate sound coming to your ear from those places.\n\nThere are headphones that simulate 3D with only 2 spakers, but the ones you posted have \"real surround\", so they have all those small speakers inside.",
"I am sure I saw a Doctor Karl tweet about this recently - but I may be misremembering.\n\nPicture a big, empty, echoless room with you in the centre. At random positions in the room every 15 seconds, someone plays a bird noise sample. \n\nThe way your ears reflect the sound makes you hear it slightly differently if it comes from front or back (I am not aware of the specifics at all) and the two ears hear it differently (probably more so than just different volumes) depending on the side it comes from as well.\n\nWhen your brain processes whatever reaches your ears, it takes the position information \"out\" of the sound so you just hear the bird (ie it sounds the same front/back/left/right) but know where the sound is coming from.\n\n5.1 headphones essentially process the outgoing audio from the device so it arrives in your ears sounding like it would if it actually came from that direction and bounced off your ears into your head. instead of being beamed straight in from the headphones.\n\nPotentially ninja-edit : This is the 2-speaker type, not those referred to by knudow below",
"You only have two ears, why would you need 5 speakers?\n\nYou determine direction normally by comparing the volume of the sound on each ear. You only have two volumes to compare, so there only needs to be two speakers whose volume is designed to simulate a certain direction. This isn't as possible with normal speakers because then they'll be further away, complicating things. Headphones are designed at a very specific distance.\n\nOnly advantage a normal 5.1 setup would have is that you can move your head, which does help with determining direction, particularly separating things in front and things in back. If you had 3 speakers in each headphone, you wouldn't get this anyway, so it would just be more expensive (though easier to engineer as you don't need to figure out the simulation as above)."
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2dvxzh | how do the site owners of popular forums like stackoverflow make money if posting is free and no ads? | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/2dvxzh/eli5_how_do_the_site_owners_of_popular_forums/ | {
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"_URL_0_\n\nStack overflow CEO discussing how they monetize",
"They sell statistics about their user base. This is how all free services generate money. You are not the customer, you are the product.",
"They do sell ads. They also charge for job listings\n\n_URL_0_"
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c10cup | other than ownership, what are the differences between an apartment and a condo? | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/c10cup/eli5_other_than_ownership_what_are_the/ | {
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"Ownership is really the only real difference. That said, in a condo building, there’s usually some kind of owners’ association where the residents as a whole are members and pay dues and the association has the responsibility of taking care of the outside of the building and sometimes minor internal repairs.",
"Ownership, but it has many side effects. The landlord that owns the building has control of a lot of things, unless you're in a city like New York with lots of tenant protection laws. The condo owners usually have a more democratic management approach for the association that handles common facilities.",
"Living may be similar, but the responsibilities of a condo are more like a house. There can be disagreements over who is responsible for items. This is where a well managed condo has a \"matrix of duties\" that applies. Condos have bylaws that can limit resident behavior. Apartments have rent that can be raised at will unless controlled. Condos have association fees and special assessments. An apartment is a \"turn key\" operation while a condo can take some involvement to keep things running properly.",
"This is the main difference — an apartment is rented from a single landlord who owns the building and all units in it as well as all common areas. A condo is individually owned residential units with a homeowners association that owns the common areas.\n\nI guess the biggest difference then would be that a property manager for apartments works for the landlord, while the property manager for a condo works for the residents."
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46vlt1 | if all humans disappear from the earth, how long would it take for a nuclear power plant to go chernobyl? | Can you also explain why/the process behind it. Also assuming it was completely untouched, not hit by a tsunami like Fukushima. | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/46vlt1/eli5_if_all_humans_disappear_from_the_earth_how/ | {
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"I suggest you read some more about [Chernobyl](_URL_0_) since nuclear plants don't really explode by themselves. ",
"Mostly they will not. it took active decisions to generate the Chernobyl disaster. There was also another less publicised nuclear disaster in the Soviet Union before that.\n\n",
"Nuclear engineer here. \n\nIf all onsite and offsite power is lost, emergency generators fail, and steam powered cooling systems fail, you can expect core melting in 1-3 hours and containment rupture/release in about a day for all non passive safety plants. \n\nPassive safety plants can survive about a week under the same conditions. \n\nThese are worst case scenarios of course. More likely would be a few days to a week or two. ",
"1- this sub is for asking and explaining concepts, not for asking questions.\n\n2- for futurology related questions, /r/futurology is the most adequate sub.\n\n3- the answer is never, power plants aren't that dangerous, when the containment systems stop working, the biggest damage possible would be a few animals in the surroundings with cancer or mutation (supposing they never move twenty metres away from the installations)."
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3w7zi2 | plane emergency landings | I have seen movies and TV shows where the plane must land on a road since there are no nearby airfields (see: leverage for one such example) and the interstate was apparently built to handle aircraft if needed. My question is: can you explain the logistics in landing like this? How do you not hit any cars? How do you move the plane after you landed? | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/3w7zi2/eli5_plane_emergency_landings/ | {
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"You don't. You crash land and hope the cars move out of the way.\n\nYou don't. A plane that emergency lands on a highway doesn't take off again. FAA regulations forbids flying until a thorough mechanical review is performed. The plane is dismantled and trucked off to a hangar.",
"The German autobahn was designed to serve as improvised airfields during WW2, but I do not believe they were frequently used for this purpose.\n\nAnd like those above have pointed out, emergency landings on highways is typically only attempted in the event of engine failure in small aircraft. Yet, it always should be a last resort. If you can't make it to an airport, you should always attempt to go for an open field first.",
"In Sweden we have a lot of highways that doubles as \"Spare airfields\" for use in time of war.\nSo if you when you drive in Sweden you might suddenly find yourself driving on a wide and straight road, then you are on an airfield.\nLike this:\n_URL_0_"
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wgulr | how are toll roads legal? i thought that taxes payed for roads? | Question in the title plus a bonus: can you get a ticket for using the fast pass or pike pass lane without having the pass? | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/wgulr/how_are_toll_roads_legal_i_thought_that_taxes/ | {
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"Different roads are funded by different taxes and different governments. Some roads are paid for by the cities, others by the states, and some by the federal government. The roads are paid for using various methods, and some states choose to use tolls on the roads as a way for paying for the construction and maintenance. Generally, you'll find that there is a way to get to a destination without tolls, unless there's a bridge or tunnel with a toll (in which case you'd need to swim to avoid it). You'll see tolls on certain big highways, but not on local roads, so you have a choice as to which you can use.\n\nYou absolutely can be ticketed for going through a toll plaza without paying it, and the ticket will be for quite a bit more than the toll would have been. This is what's called punitive - an additional penalty designed to discourage you from doing something. If you went through a $3 toll without paying, and once every ten times a police officer caught and ticketed you for $3, you'd have no incentive to pay the toll, because your choice is between paying $3, or paying nothing with a small chance to pay $3. Rather, the officer will likely ticket you for $50, which far exceeds the cost of the toll, but it makes the option to go through the toll without paying less appealing. The higher penalty you are risking discourages you from attempting it.",
"You pay a premium on certain frequently used roads/bridges/tunnels in order to supplement the general taxes. This keeps people who use the road more (though not entirely) financially responsible for contributing to upkeep. As opposed to raising taxes on everyone all the time. \n\nLY5?\n\nEvery person in your neighborhood has access to dial-up Internet because they live there. If people want faster Internet, they can pay a \"boost fee\" for a speed boost. This speed boost makes things faster, but maintenance on the boosters costs a lot of money. The internet company uses the \"boost fee\" to make the boost lines all better without making everyone in the neighborhoods pay for all the repairs. \n\n\n",
"Added: I know in NH they will bill you and charge you the toll plus an additional $5 - I know from experience. Also, if you go to a manned toll in NH and plead ignorance, they give you a \"bill\" right at the booth for the toll plus $1.50 and an envelope by which to mail it. ",
"Many toll roads are privatized, and thus aren't paid for by your taxes. Not all, but some.",
"Taxes pay for basic services. The gov't can charge *fees* for extra services, like entering a state park or ordering a copy of your birth certificate. Tool roads are just another service that has a fee.\n\nAnd yes, you can totally get a ticket for stealing a service without paying the required fee."
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ns0oh | why referring a pakistani 'paki' is a racial abuse? | Aussie, Brit, Indian, African is all okay but 'paki' is so wrong. Why? | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/ns0oh/eli5_why_referring_a_pakistani_paki_is_a_racial/ | {
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"because its meant in a derogatory way. If i said AMERIKA in that retarded voice, you might take offence, but i'm just saying your countries name right?",
"Same reason why \"Jap\" is a racial slur. If a word is used often enough to degrade people, it starts implying the derogatory attitudes it was used to express.",
"I wasn't aware it was, my Pakistani friend refers to her friends as Paki often.",
"Slurs of any kind become wrong because of they way they are used. Once the word has been used in a hateful or derogatory manner enough times, the word itself can be used to imply hateful and derogatory things without them having to be explicitly mentioned. This makes the word itself offensive, and thus bad. Often, once it becomes taboo, the offensiveness creates a feedback cycle, making it worse and worse to use. \n\nIn case you're a literal 5 year old: If you call someone a name in a mean way long enough, that name will remind them of the mean things that go along with it, and so they might have their feelings hurt if you call them that. ",
"Because you have \"KKK\" in your username.",
"You'll find that in the UK it is often used in a derogatory way to people of South Asian descent, not just pakistani's alone. I got called 'Paki' plenty growing up in the UK, but now i detest it. I do tell my friends to stop, because it's equivalent to what henry82 was saying. ",
"Because perfectly fine words devolve into slurs by their usage. \nIt is quite common when it comes to various mental handicaps as well. \n\nYou will likely find a politically correct race going on in order to find a new, fancy, non-offensive word for people with a mental handicap, but people fail to realize that even if we start calling people \"Reality-perceptionally gifted\", it will take the average fifth grader about a week to manage to make the term sound offensive.",
"The N word developed from 'black' in romance languages (originally Niger in Latin). \n\nKnowing this and/or explaining this doesn't make it ok to use. Ask yourself why and you'll have your answer.",
"It's not in Australia. Bizarre, but true. However, it is in the UK.\n\nThe \"come on Aussie, come on, come on\" World Series Cricket ads used the word \"Pakis\" and no-one thought anything strange about it, least of all the pakis.\n",
"I went to an CL tie between english and turkish clubs. The fans were singing \"I rather be a paki than a turk\" in unison. That made it pretty clear to me both were used to degrade them.",
"It is all about usage.\n\nFor example, \"moron\" used to be valid scientific term, referring to people with IQ's in the 50-70 range. Once it became a popularly used insult, the terminology shifted to \"retarded\", which itself is being phased out for the same reason.\n",
"because its meant in a derogatory way. If i said AMERIKA in that retarded voice, you might take offence, but i'm just saying your countries name right?",
"Same reason why \"Jap\" is a racial slur. If a word is used often enough to degrade people, it starts implying the derogatory attitudes it was used to express.",
"I wasn't aware it was, my Pakistani friend refers to her friends as Paki often.",
"Slurs of any kind become wrong because of they way they are used. Once the word has been used in a hateful or derogatory manner enough times, the word itself can be used to imply hateful and derogatory things without them having to be explicitly mentioned. This makes the word itself offensive, and thus bad. Often, once it becomes taboo, the offensiveness creates a feedback cycle, making it worse and worse to use. \n\nIn case you're a literal 5 year old: If you call someone a name in a mean way long enough, that name will remind them of the mean things that go along with it, and so they might have their feelings hurt if you call them that. ",
"Because you have \"KKK\" in your username.",
"You'll find that in the UK it is often used in a derogatory way to people of South Asian descent, not just pakistani's alone. I got called 'Paki' plenty growing up in the UK, but now i detest it. I do tell my friends to stop, because it's equivalent to what henry82 was saying. ",
"Because perfectly fine words devolve into slurs by their usage. \nIt is quite common when it comes to various mental handicaps as well. \n\nYou will likely find a politically correct race going on in order to find a new, fancy, non-offensive word for people with a mental handicap, but people fail to realize that even if we start calling people \"Reality-perceptionally gifted\", it will take the average fifth grader about a week to manage to make the term sound offensive.",
"The N word developed from 'black' in romance languages (originally Niger in Latin). \n\nKnowing this and/or explaining this doesn't make it ok to use. Ask yourself why and you'll have your answer.",
"It's not in Australia. Bizarre, but true. However, it is in the UK.\n\nThe \"come on Aussie, come on, come on\" World Series Cricket ads used the word \"Pakis\" and no-one thought anything strange about it, least of all the pakis.\n",
"I went to an CL tie between english and turkish clubs. The fans were singing \"I rather be a paki than a turk\" in unison. That made it pretty clear to me both were used to degrade them.",
"It is all about usage.\n\nFor example, \"moron\" used to be valid scientific term, referring to people with IQ's in the 50-70 range. Once it became a popularly used insult, the terminology shifted to \"retarded\", which itself is being phased out for the same reason.\n"
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5bebpd | physiologically... what happens when someone opens your eyelids when you're asleep? | when we were young, i would open my brother's eyelids when he's asleep (that's fucked yes i know)... what happens? if anything at all? does the brain register anything? or is it just dumb and cruel to do that to your brother? | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/5bebpd/eli5_physiologically_what_happens_when_someone/ | {
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" > what happens? if anything at all? does the brain register anything?\n\nThe retina doesn't stop working when you close your eyes, it is just that the eyelids block most of the incoming light. When you sleep the part of your brain that interprets light goes mostly dormant and ignores the signals from the retina. Unless of course they are strong enough which is why shining a bright light in your face will wake you when asleep.\n\nOpening someone's eyes while they are asleep exposes them to potential damage and also removes the barrier of the lids to incoming light. Assuming they aren't awoken by the light and nothing damages the eye (including drying out) they should be fine. The brain doesn't really care if the retina is sending almost no signal because the interior of the eyelids is dark or the room is dark."
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1pupnb | why is there always(what i think is) an unrealistic amount of downvotes on great reddit submissions? | When you look at the top posts to reddit you see a huge amount of upvotes(for example the top post today has 22841 upvotes so far) as the post is funny, interesting etc. However, it also has 19105 downvotes. This strikes me as ridiculous and I have a hard time believing that that many people felt the need to downvote. I realize that people are going to have varying opinions on things and that not everyone will find the same things funny but the posts in question do not take some sort of controversial stance on anything so there's not a whole lot of room for dislike or disagreement.
TL;DR What's goin on a'tal? | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/1pupnb/eli5_why_is_there_alwayswhat_i_think_is_an/ | {
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"Reddit has a vote-fuzzing algorithm that adds fake upvotes and downvotes (keeping the overall score stable), so that people who run bot networks for automatically upvoting/downvoting content can't tell if their bots are working or not."
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33ybcp | why do people with blond hair look like their hair is dark or black at the base by scalp, but the rest of it is blonde? why doesn't that dark hair grow and make their hair dark? | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/33ybcp/eli5_why_do_people_with_blond_hair_look_like/ | {
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"It's usually either dye or sun related. Since your hair is dead, it can't increase melanin production to absorb light better, and the sun will kill off the melanin that's there. The roots are new hair and haven't been as affected by the light, so they'll lighten as they grow out, but the natural color is the root. Also, like mentioned, it's hard to get there if you lighten your hair chemically without damaging the skin of the scalp. "
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38donw | why does music conservatories/academia put so much emphasis on jazz and classical music? | Been to graduation concerts since Monday, and 19 of 20 have been either pure Jazz/Fusion or a Mix of old and new Classical music. One student did play some more rock-ish instrumental stuff, but that's about it. | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/38donw/eli5_why_does_music_conservatoriesacademia_put_so/ | {
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"I don't know much about music but a friend once explained to me that jazz is very heavily based in scales and music theory, thus jazz is very challenging and interesting to play...anybody wanna add to that?",
"Just look at the sheet music. Pop/Rock are usually pretty basic song structures. Classical and Jazz have crazier timings, usually more complex parts. ",
"You're essentially asking why does Art School have so much emphasis on Leonardo, Donatello, Van Gogh, Andy Warhol Impressionism, etc etc.\n\nThe reason rock n rollers aren't particularly cared for in the Academic circle is because it's easy. The chord structures, the solos, everything is extremely simple in general terms.\n\nThere's certainly an element of snootiness to it, but there's only so many things you can say about 1-4-5 chords. \n\nI guess my other question is, what do you expect them to focus on?\n\n",
"Jazz and classical lend themselves well to academic study because they're intrinsically linked. They're the types of music that are written to be studied. They're musicians' music. There's not much to be gained from studying a I-IV-V pop rock song.\n\nOr they're just wankers.",
"Comparing rock and classical music is kind of like comparing simple arithmetic to really, really abstract math. Like, math so high above simple arithmetic that most of it is written in these arcane eldritch symbols whose ancient meanings have been forgotten by all but a wise, ancient few, and so abstract that it doesn't even have *numbers.*\n\nWhat I'm saying is, rock is mostly made up of simple chords. It's structure is relatively simple -- even if there are a bunch of notes that come really fast after one another, it's still usually really simple to break it down into its component chords. Which, I'm pretty sure, is actually *why* it's so catchy.\n\nClassical music (and jazz, for that matter) are *complicated.* Their structure is way more complicated than rock -- if you try to break it down, you'll see that you *can't,* not in the same way as with rock. In classical music, the chords that form the backbone of rock flow into one another, forming not so much a backbone as a friggin meta-melody. Sometimes, the chords themselves are strange, alien things, making sense only in the context of the piece. It's like the composition is a giant fucking web of music, that you're attempting to navigate by playing it.\n\nClassical music demonstrates concepts whose complexity is actually larger than what can fit into rock. Like, rock is too small.",
"Like others have said - jazz & classical are advanced and complex enough to warrant studying at such institutions to get truly good at.\n\nRock and pop etc, not so much.\n\nThat said, learning classical is often what allows rock musicians to truly stand out. They can take the complex stuff from classic and subtly infuse it into rock to make something that truly stands out.\n\nTake [Yngwie Malmsteen](_URL_0_) for instance. Generally regarded as one of the best guitarists out there. He had a fascination with classic and practiced it immensely before eventually applying it to the rock genre.",
"a fairly simple explanation - Pop, rock,country, punk, Funk, R & B, metal, etc. have one thing in common and that is is designed to have a primarily emotional appeal. It isn't a hard and fast rule, but a generalization. I play jazz and have a formal education in jazz, but initially I came up playing in club bands, self taught.\n\nA factor that is overlooked in this discussion is the quality of music from the 30's to the late 50's - Gershwin, Porter, Loesser, Nestico, etc. - guys who brought great melodies and progressions to popular music via broadway, big bands, and sheet music. Open the Real Book and see how much of the material there is from that era and styles. Not jazz, but wonderful songs written by musical geniuses. ",
"Because Jazz and Classical are they hardest kinds of music to compose and/or play. It takes a real genius to compose a timeless work of classical or Jazz. \n\nAs a musician, I can say without a doubt, it is way easier to write a rock, metal, funk, pop, bluegrass or etc. song than a classical or jazz song.",
"Musician here...the simplistic way I can put this is most modern music is based around counting to 4: 1 2 3 4. Where as jazz and classical can still be based around the simple count to 4, but now you have to count say: 1 and a two and a 3 e and 4. Further subdividing the time creating more complex rythmes. Listen to a song by katy perry and count 1 2 3 4 and see how often any beat or rythme strays from thay count. Now listen to any jazz or classical piece and try to count out the rythme with all the complex time subdivisions. ",
" \n\n\nPro drummer, composer, producer w degree in jazz who works in many genres here. \n\nNot sure anyone has mentioned this HUGE element of jazz yet - improvisation. It takes a certain level of mastery of an instrument where you can freely improvise and have a VOICE, and have your ears developed and sensibility to a point as to listen and create as a group, in the moment. This is pretty huge and a big distinction from other forms of music. If you can get to a certain level of jazz, both technique and concept, many many other forms of music that's stem from jazz (most American music) come much easier. So to help answer your question - jazz is an incredible foundation to set someone off to be a pro musician of any kind. \n\n\n",
"Lots of misinformation here, so as a graduate of one of the rarer non-classical, non-jazz programs in the country I'll throw in. \n\nIt has nothing to do with complexity or ease, and everything to do with a clear canon of \"accepted\" works, a pre-existing curriculum model, a wealth of experienced professionals who are able to work well in an academic environment, and a clear program goal. Jazz and classical have these; pop does not. Starting a pop program means designing a program basically from scratch and finding professionals who can translate their work experience to an academic setting, while most classical and jazz musicians have already been through conservatory programs and absorbed their knowledge *within* a pre-existing system. \n\nJust try designing a curriculum and it becomes clear why few pop programs exist. Design a classical curriculum, well shit, you've got hundreds of years of tradition: copy, paste, now your college has a conservatory. For pop, it's different - here, let's ask the relevant curriculum questions: \n\nWhich genres would you cover? Where would you draw the line between genres? Would you emphasize studio engineering, and to what degree? How would MIDI programming fit in? Most classical programs know they can safely leave out Graupner and Salieri, but can a pop program afford to leave out Fleetwood Mac and Crowded House? Being a multi-instrumentalist is a big part of being a pop musician - should everyone be a proficient drummer AND bassist? Do they need to operate Digital Audio Workstations? How much time will you require them to spend in the music studio? Classical players have symphony rep classes and jazz musicians have big band - what similarly large ensemble will the pop players be able to take part in? \n\nWhat textbooks would you use? You'd need textbooks that cover dubstep's use of the flat 3 as a dominant, surely, and an explanation of modality in west coast hip hop - what book will cover that? You'll have to make one. And what will you use to analyze orchestrations? Most of those orchestrations were recorded once and then thrown out - are you ready to notate for yourself all 100+ instruments in that Owl City song? Even notated stuff (like The Beatles works) tends to be notated by ear and is frequently inaccurate (and expensive to reproduce). \n\nWhat's your canon? Major classical rep covering most of the major styles basically boils down to fewer than thirty composers; more if you get past the 1950s. Jazz draws on a known body of work (the Great American Songbook) and again relies on the output of around ~20 major artists and their ensembles, usually playing in a few big-tent styles. With pop music, you're usually dealing with many more people with much less output, and an outrageous amount of diversity in that field; just hitting rock and r & b from 1950-1990 in any meaningful way would be an enormous undertaking. \n\n*[edit: I wrote this in another comment and thought it would be relevant here:]\n\n > In many ways, what makes something teachable in a conservatory is its simplicity. This is why harmony gets so much more focus in theory curriculum than melodic construction: it's easier to explain and analyze advanced harmony than advanced rhythms. Classical music is all notated: I don't need to transcribe anything or do any analysis on my own to teach how Beethoven composed and orchestrated a piece, because there's already an enormous body of analysis and every part is diligently notated. If I want to teach a class on how to orchestrate like Elvis Costello and The Attractions I'm going to have to start from scratch, which sucks since the bass and voice are in fast, intricate counterpoint - never mind the drum set (several percussion instruments played concurrently) and the almost-unreproducable organ tones.\n\n > For a trained musician, teaching the best classical music in detail is easier than teaching the best pop music. When I started teaching I basically had to design half my curriculum from scratch.\n\nMoreover, you're dealing with a market that often doesn't feel they need formal training. The amount of rock guitarists who think they need to go to school is going to be way lower than the amount of oboists who feel they need schooling. How will you get the parents to pay for the program? Classical conservatories have been around for hundreds of years; why should daddy cosign the loan to study Pop Music when Paul McCartney didn't need a degree? \n\nAlso, you need totally different sets of skills for different jobs. The skillset for jazz musicians is pretty clear, as is the skillset for symphony players or contemporary chamber ensembles. But what does it mean to be a player of popular music? A session player in Nashville has a totally different set of guidelines than a metal guitarist in New York. And how will you get it taken seriously? Sure, that Miley Cyrus song has some interesting modal transformations and awesome melodic instability, especially compared to bland early Classical music - but try telling the department chair that you're spending a semester on John Mayer, Miley Cyrus, and ABBA. \n\nAnyway: There already exist programs for film music, commercial music, and pop music (Berklee being the clear front-runner). They're all over the Northeast, Nashville, and SoCal. There are also contemporary music programs within more traditional conservatories, like the Studio Production/Composition major at SUNY Purchase, from which Regina Spektor and Dan Romer graduated. Most of these have their own curriculums tailored to specific genres, or are broad catch-all programs. They're very rarely operated in the same buildings as classical programs, and when they are the classical staff has very little regard for them, even if they both suck just as hard at one another's specialties. \n\nFinally, to debunk a few of the WILD misconceptions I'm seeing around here: \n\n > Classical and Jazz music is inexplicably complex!\n\nReally? Most jazz tunes are 32-bar AABA songs, in sections of 8 bars each. They start with the \"head\" and then progress through different solos. Harmonically, they're usually a tour through the circle of fifths with some cool substitutions. Alright, that covers jazz harmony up until modal jazz and Coltrane changes. For classical, you spend several decades dealing with clear forms, usually also organized into even-numbered and symmetrical phrase lengths, again using lots of circle-of-fifths motion and some substitutions. This'll cover most major works written in the Classical period, and a bunch in the Romantic period. \n\n > Sure, top 40 is dumb, but Death Metal—\n\nLet me just stop you right there, metalhead. Top 40 Pop music has plenty of stuff to interest academics and aspiring players alike. Whether you're dealing with the novel orchestrations of Brian Wilson, the harmonic complexity of Steely Dan, the tight melodic construction of ABBA, the modality of hip-hop, or the production technique of Miley Cyrus, there's plenty worth studying. Certainly most of it is more interesting than half the stuff you'll hear from Haydn. Hell, there are more metric modulations in the work of boy band B4-4 than there are in the works of most classical composers pre-20th century. \n\n > But classical music after Schoenberg is wildly complex! And free jazz! And—\n\nYeah, but most jazz programs give very little overall attention to post-bebop jazz, and most classical performance programs gloss over the 20th century, at least until undergrad. By and large the focus is on learning music that doesn't require a calculator, or a matrix, or vast theoretical knowledge. \n\n**TLDR: Pop music programs do exist, but they are rare because of lower demand, fewer ties with academia, fewer academic resources (pre-existing curriculum, accurately-notated works, extensive theoretical analyses and textbooks), and a much broader and more recently created body of work.**\n\nEdit: a lot. ",
"It's simply because classical music is established, so people know how to study it. It's like with literature, you will study the classics. Contemporary novels are just as creative but they haven't entered the realm of established \"classics\" yet, and it's the same with contemporary music.",
"They've been around a lot longer than popular music and are institutionalized at this point. All other forms of western music stem from classical or jazz. They are the root of most contemporary forms of music, so the idea for most music institutions is to go to the source."
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2teeky | why is ocean water so hard to process to make it drinkingn water? | I've seen new inventions like Bill Gates poop water, and still wondering, why if most of our planet is non-drinkable water, hasn't there been a way to purfiy it? | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/2teeky/eli5_why_is_ocean_water_so_hard_to_process_to/ | {
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"It's hard to get salt out of something it has dissolved into, without it costing you so much energy it becomes pointless from a cost perspective. You can do it, but only up to a point, which is why a lot of island nations don't have drinkable tap water."
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1k06ch | lavabit shutting down | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/1k06ch/eli5_lavabit_shutting_down/ | {
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"Us government said either comply with our domestic spying demands or stop operating. Rather than violate the constitutional rights of Americans, they chose to suspend operations while they try to prove in court the demands are in violation of our constitutional rights to privacy and against illegal search and seizures. We don't know quite exactly what is going on though because apparently the courts have also removed their right to free speech in regards to what the demands were specifically. It's all laws and actions taking place in secret behind closed doors, what I thought would always be tin hat people talk, but sadly it's real now."
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3ub4hr | why does my cat want to cuddle then suddenly attack me viciously? | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/3ub4hr/eli5_why_does_my_cat_want_to_cuddle_then_suddenly/ | {
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"He doesn't want to cuddle, he wants warmth, just let him do his thing, then, pat his head, don't over stimulate him. \n\nYou'll want to know your cat well, after the Facebook thing... "
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42hgcy | why is "if man evolved from monkeys, why are there still monkeys?" not a good argument against evolution? | I was raised in a religious cult that has and still does preach against evolution, and while I have woken up from the mind control and now realize that evolution is fact, I still do not fully understand it. I would love some help in this area! | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/42hgcy/eli5_why_is_if_man_evolved_from_monkeys_why_are/ | {
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"Say you want to do a little selective breeding. You take 2 golden retrievers that each have a specific trait you want to breed into a new animal, like unusually coloured fur or whatever.\n\nOnce your dogs breed, they'll have a litter of puppies, some of which will have the differently coloured fur, but most will just be regular golden retrievers. \n\nThat's why there's still monkeys. Because while a small number of monkey offspring slowly became humans, the rest of the baby monkeys didn't change, and are still monkeys.\n\nedit: grammar",
"The one-line response is: \"if Americans descend from Europeans, why are there still Europeans?\"\n\nA little less flippantly: we didn't evolve from *modern* monkeys. We, and modern apes, descended from a common ancestor that was also a primate.",
"We didn't evolve from any monkey species alive today. We evolved from a shared common ancestor with them. At some point in the distant past our branch of the family tree diverged from that branch, perhaps by a geographical separation between two populations. Fast forward to today and each branch has evolved into a different species (or more, as they continue to branch themselves). ",
"Evolution isn't a linear process. Imagine it like this: You have a monkey. That monkey have two baby monkeys. One of the babies is a pretty standard monkey, very similar to the parent. The other baby is a bit more intelligent than the average monkey. \n\nStandard monkey goes on to meet a standard lady monkey, and they have standard monkey babies. Intelligent monkey hooks up with another intelligent lady monkey and has intelligent monkey babies. This happens over and over throughout a bunch of generations until there are loads of ancestors of intelligent monkeys and loads of ancestors of standard monkeys. The intelligent monkeys keep prioritising intelligence when they choose mates, so their children keep getting more intelligent than the standard monkeys until there's such a massive difference that they're not the same species any more.\n\nNow there's 2 things (very broadly speaking) which can happen. If there's a lack of resources (food, habitat, water) then the intelligent monkeys will use their monkey-smarts to dominate access to that resource and the standard monkeys will die out. \n\nBUT if there isn't a shortage of resources, then the monkeys co-exist going down their separate lines, with one group developing increased intelligence as they breed with their intelligent friends, and one group just continuing to be your run of the mill monkey. Or one group may leave and find other/better resources elsewhere. \n\nSo, from the original monkey you (eventually) get two species arising which can still coexist. "
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r3x2f | how trees know when to start blooming. what does the temperature to do initiate budding? | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/r3x2f/eli5_how_trees_know_when_to_start_blooming_what/ | {
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"OK, it has nothing to do with the temperature. Plants use light, as it is far more consistent than the temperature, to gauge when they begin blossoming. Basically, plants need an uninterrupted period of darkness of a certain length. You can do an experiment with this by waking up in the middle of the night and shining a bright light on your flowers for five minutes. Certain species will not bloom just from that small interruption.\n\nBasically, every year the length of day and night will be the same on the same day, even though the temperature can vary greatly. Plants using temperature are more likely to blossom to early and die from a frost.\n\n_URL_0_"
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1zsys5 | how do rockets combustion stay lit in space? | Even in an environment with no oxygen? | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/1zsys5/eli5_how_do_rockets_combustion_stay_lit_in_space/ | {
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"Rockets carry both the fuel and the oxygen for combustion. "
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