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yrx9p | how does the nsa 'intercept' domestic communications? | Following the [amazing Wired article this past spring](_URL_1_), and [yesterday's NYTimes op-ed](_URL_0_), I've become interested in the NSA supposed domestic spying program. In both pieces, a whistle-blower, William Binney, claims that the NSA is quickly building a database which contains the electronic communications, banking records, etc, of all Americans.
I'm not a technical person. I have very little understanding of networks and communications. However, I've watched enough movies to have a vague understanding of how individual, warranted intercepts are done... The authorities get a warrant, go to an ISP, or telco, show the warrant, and get the information. I'm under the impression that, in order for the NSA to spy on all of our communications, all the time, the logistics would have to be somewhat different...
Can anyone ELI5 a technical method for how the NSA gathers all of this information? In other words, how does it continuously 'intercept' the data of hundreds of millions of people at a time? | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/yrx9p/eli5_how_does_the_nsa_intercept_domestic/ | {
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"Internet and telephone communications travel from your house (or from your telephone provider) broken up into small packets of digital data. Each little packet contains a header that says where it is from and where it is going. Those packets are all switched and routed through various pieces of equipment on the network to get them closer to their final destination. When they reach the internet proper, they are part of a bundle of millions of similar little packets. \n \nThe NSA has set up posts at numerous places on those networks to receive and make copies of transmissions. All they need to do is to insert devices at major hubs where many paths of a network come together and make a copy of each data packet, sending that copy to the massive data-analysis centers they have set up. (I don't know how they transport all of the data, if it is done on a separate network or using the same ones that they are spying on.) The original data packet is sent on its merry way after the copy is made. \n \nAnyone with physical access to the major \"long haul\" datacommunications cables that carry internet/phone traffic could do this. The big trick isn't making copies of the data, or even in putting the various packets back together again. It is analyzing all of them to separate the interesting stuff out. The amount of data flowing through those network nodes is huge. Trying to use humans to sift through it would be like asking thousands of employees to drink from fire hoses and let someone know when they tasted a drop that seemed odd. "
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7c5jp4 | why do different engines require different viscosity lubricating oils? | Why do some engines use 5w-20 as opposed to 10w-20 or 20w-50? | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/7c5jp4/eli5why_do_different_engines_require_different/ | {
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"Engines are configured in different ways. Old flathead engines had all their moving parts near the oil pan. Oil didn't need to be pumped too far to get it where it needed to be. Also, clearances were looser in those engines, so a thicker (more viscous) oil was needed to keep the parts from wearing out prematurely. New engines have oiled parts (e.g. camshafts) farther away from the oil pan so the oil has to be easier to pump there. Thinner, less viscous oils work better here. Generally, you'll find newer engines use 5W-30 or 5W-20 (some even use 0W-20) oil where just a decade ago, 10W-30 was commonly used. Advances in engine design and oil formulations have allowed the use of these lighter (runnier) oils. If you tried to run 5W-20 in a 1965 454, it would probably be knocking within a week.\n",
"Components that require fluid for power transmission or lubrication need them to be at a certain viscosity (measured in cP(centipoise)) within a certain temperature range. Different cP ratings have different viscosity at different temperatures and the integrity of the fluid can be affected if it's not being used for the right application. It also changes how well the system performs. Manufacturers determine what is optimal for the system at given operating temperatures. This is why you swap to a different weight of oil for engines in cold conditions. \n\nThis applies to every system requiring lubrication and/or pressure generated via a fluid medium. Its even more critical in hydraulic systems. ",
"Engine are built using \"tolerances\" between parts. those numbers simply means that they define a space between each moving components. Engine Oil is simply filling up the space between those parts to reduce the amount of friction.\n\nThe wider the space , the more viscous oil will be required to keep things from rubbing too much. On the opposite, the tighter space will require a thinner oil to be able to seep thru.\n\nSo when a engine is built , the maker will do some testing to see which oil viscosity is required to enable those hundreds of friction points to be lubricated and stay lubricated.",
"When figuring out what oils an engine (or anything really) is going to require, you have several critical parameters that you must keep in mind. Since you want to keep an engine lubricated, what you're looking for is a protective barrier between large numbers of extremely tightly fit chunks of metal, most of which will be moving very quickly and with a whole lot of power behind them.\n\nFailure to do this properly can quickly lead to the friction in your precisely tuned and meticulously designed wonder of modern technology. This means losing large amounts of the explosion's energy as waste heat (bye bye fuel efficiency), increased wear, or in the worst case loud unhealthy noises as your car's insides rub themselves to a screeching agonizing death. You'll probably sound just like it when you see the repair bill.\n\nMost critical here are the minimum and maximum operating temperatures of the things involved, and the viscosity itself you're looking for within those ranges, which is going to be based in part on the mechanical tolerances, part composition and so on:\n\n A regular engine could be doing 150-170C in there once it's going, and yet you need the bloody thing to start at -30 Monday morning. An oil that was perfect in 40 degree weather is thick molasses for your car in the arctic, and that perfect nuclear-winter polar sauce will be so thin the parts may just scrape it off or hug each-other right through it, with expensive results.\n\nLuckily, we have additives now, though, allowing us a truly broad range of temperatures with the same pint. Synthetic's damn good stuff nowadays.\n\nNow, the reason two engines can need different oils, is because they operate differently and/or have different tolerances (the space between stuff, often measured in thousandths of an inch). A good oil has to be thin enough to properly coat everything even as things expand terribly close, yet viscous enough to keep that slippery cushion going strong when you hit it up for full power. A Diesel motor might be topping 300C in there instead of 165, which could make a good oil for gas just way too thin at high regimes, or the entirely wrong stuff ignite!\n\nEven the additives will change things up; there's anti-corrosion stuff, stuff that adds wear-reducing disulfides to everything you bathe in it and so on.\n\nFinally, just a word of warning: The ratings are split up by category or type of engine: Even if the numbers sometimes seem the same, aircraft engines, gearboxes, transmissions, excavator pistons and your father's old two-stroke mower (actually that one the oil goes in the gas-tank) are NOT the same as your new car. You might get a few miles, but you may be burning years off the thing's life.\n\nTldr: Different motors have different tolerances, different operating temperatures, and no oil is truly universal for all things."
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1yde3n | how these wristbands keep you from getting car sick. | When I was little I would get car sick all the time on long trips. Then my dad found [these](_URL_0_) wrist bands and ever since i've never got car sick again.
I know they press down on a certain vein on each wrist, but how would that keep me from getting car sick exactly? | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/1yde3n/eli5_how_these_wristbands_keep_you_from_getting/ | {
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"This could very well just be a placebo effect. Basically, mind over matter. The wristband, almost like a safety blanket (a blanket or other generally soft object someone grabs and holds to feel safer) is simply a distraction. The placebo effect is a very useful, proven way to treat real diseases and so long as you believe in it, it works!",
"There have been a few studies into this sort of thing, and they suggest that these devices *don't* work in a physiological sense at all.\n\nRather, they probably just induce a placebo effect, wherein you *believe* you won't get sick, and so... amazingly... you don't.\n\nThe placebo effect can be pretty mind-boggling sometimes, and it's tempting to dismiss it and say \"no no no, this thing *really* does work!\" And yet that's exactly the type of response you'd expect, because - to an individual - it is indistinguishable from 'real' medicine."
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caodt2 | why some wild animals need to dance in order to mate? | I'm just curious. I never really understood why some wild animals do that. | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/caodt2/eli5_why_some_wild_animals_need_to_dance_in_order/ | {
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"Its just like with people, we need to impress the other gender, as they want the coolest, illest, most chill and dope person to get a child with.",
"Many mating displays are a way of showing off how much extra energy you have to spend. Generally, having good genes means you hunt better and get sick less often; only creatures with strong genes can spend the time and energy doing a mating dance. Thus, by watching to see who does the best mating dance, potential mates can choose the most genetically-strong partner."
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174ot9 | screen resolutions and aspect ratios | Especially when it comes to PC Gaming | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/174ot9/eli5_screen_resolutions_and_aspect_ratios/ | {
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"Resolution is the number of pixels the display is, high and wide. Pixels are the individual colored dots that make up the image: more pixels generally allows for a sharper image.\n\nWithin that context, aspect ratio is the ratio of how wide it is to how high it is. The closer you are to 1:1, the more square you are.\n\n4:3 is commonly called full screen, and 16:9 is commonly called widescreen. The former is more 'square', the latter is more 'rectangular'.\n\n4:3 means that for every 4 horizontal pixels, there are 3 vertical pixels. So the horizontal resolution is always 4/3rds the vertical resolution- 480x320, 640x480, 800x600, 1024x768, 1600x1200, 2048x1536 - all are 4:3 ratios\n\n16:9 has 16 horizontal pixels for every 9 vertical pixels, so you'll see 1600x900 and 1920x1080.\n\nThere are also 16:10 and 5:4, which are less common.\n\nGames vary in how they deal with these resolutions. Some games have a fixed height, so that as you go to wider aspect ratios, you get a wider horizontal field of views. Other games might stretch to fill the screen, which distorts the image (circles become ovals, etc).",
"Think like legos. Some screens are huge, but only made up of a couple big legos. Legos are pixels. Literally, that means \"picture element.\" The 800x600 number means that to make a rectangular picture, your lego screen is 800 bricks long and 600 bricks tall. If you have a screen that's 42 inches (which is measured from one corner to the opposite corner, diagonally) your legos are pretty big. It's not super *clear* but it's *big.* Now, if that same 42 inch screen is 1920x1080, the legos have to be smaller to fit. That means a clearer picture. A modern phone can have the same number of legos (pixels) as a high def TV, it's just that the legos are much smaller, so you have to be closer to see it. But you're usually only a foot or two away from your phone screen, instead of 10-20 feet for your TV. So it works out.\n\nNow, LCD and LED monitors have their legos already laid out. The old tube-style monitors could switch resolutions, but that advantage really isn't worth it in most markets anymore.\n\nAlso, your computer has to *work* to determine which color to paint your legos, and it has to draw a whole new picture for every frame. If you want it to do too many pixels or do them too quickly, your computer won't handle it well. "
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25h3xb | what exactly would classifying internet service providers as title 2 common carriers do? | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/25h3xb/eli5_what_exactly_would_classifying_internet/ | {
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"They would then have to allow competing companies the opportunity to make use of their infrastructure. You could purchase cable TV or internet from any entity that chose to lease the lines from the common carrier.\n\nThe common carrier (the current cable company) could continue to offer service, and they would have the right to charge other companies that wanted to use their lines, but the end result would be that you would have only one set of physical cables that theoretically any company could offer service over."
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16u7ev | why mineral water which has travelled through mountains for thousands of years has a use by date? | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/16u7ev/eli5_why_mineral_water_which_has_travelled/ | {
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"\"You can thank the great state of New Jersey. A 1987 NJ state law required all food products sold there to display an expiration date of two years or less from the date of manufacture. Labeling, separating and shipping batches of expiration-dated water to the Garden State seemed a little inefficient to bottled water producers, so most of them simply started giving every bottle a two-year expiration date, no matter where it was going.\" I Googled it.",
"If you are talking about bottled water, then there a few reasons for an expiry date. Firstly, some states require that all food and drink have an expiry date on it, so that includes water. Secondly, the water does interact with the plastic, so it can become a bit impure. Thirdly, bottled mineral water may not be as pure as they advertise; it might just be tap water. So, the water gets purified just like city water. When water is purified, there is chance that the bacteria is not entirely destroyed, and it can re-surface after a certain amount of time.\n\nIn the end, bottled water is probably still good past it's expiration date. However, there is a chance that it might go bad. To protect itself, the company will put an expiration date on it. Even if it only prevents one person in a million from getting sick, that's one lawsuit they avoid."
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1kjzvw | why can't we just use a machine to take large amounts of c02 out of the atmosphere to slow global warming? | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/1kjzvw/eli5_why_cant_we_just_use_a_machine_to_take_large/ | {
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"This is actually a proposed solution to the problem--it's called \"carbon sequestration.\" Here's the tricky part: *where do you put it?*\n\nSuggestions include pumping it into underground reservoirs and seeding the ocean with iron in order to promote the growth of algae that will absorb carbon dioxide in their bodies and sink to the seabed when they die. No one has really come up with a viable plan, yet.",
"What exactly do you suppose should power these machines?\n\nMaybe we can power them by burning oil?\n\nThe most efficient machines to take CO² out of the atmosphere are plants and they work on solar energy.",
"What do you think all plant life does, for free? Like everyone else has said, there's too much of it, there's nowhere to put it, and even if we could it'd be too expensive.",
"The atmosphere is made of gas molecules which are, to put it simply, sitting on top of one another. All of matter--especially large clusters like a planet--has gravitational pull.\n\nLets say you had a bowl of marbles. And we're to toss a marble up into the air. Eventually, that marble would fall back down to the bowl. Same with gas molecules on earth. That's why we can't pump it out into space, it would just come back.\n\nBut what if we take it out further than Earth's gravitational pull? Well gas molecules are not densely packed together. It would take a giant mechanism to export large volumes of air off earth. The energy requirements would be astronomical and we already have enough issues trying to launch aerodynamic machines into space.\n\nAnd even if that were possible on a fuel efficient scale, the earth would be losing carbon and oxygen. CO2 is one carbon atom bonded with two oxygen atoms.\n\nThe air pollution problem isn't due to an imbalance of atomic material, it's due to an improper ratio of air pollutants.\n\nEDIT: Oh wow I just realize I read OP's question way too literally. Face palm haha. Oh well I'll just leave this up and laugh at myself later."
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cg9gaq | why does the tongue on a can of soda always open from the right side? | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/cg9gaq/eli5_why_does_the_tongue_on_a_can_of_soda_always/ | {
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"If you turn it to the left it opens to the left...maybe cuz most people are right handed it seems as though we always open from the right? i’m not sure I quite understand what you’re asking",
"When you open a can of soda, you're using mechanical pressure to tear the metal of the lid along a pre-stressed seam. This works out best if the point of tearing moves along the seam, instead of trying to tear out the whole thing at once. The lids are manufactured to have a weaker point on the right side, so the tear will start there.\n\n & #x200B;\n\nAs for why the right side instead of the left, it's arbitrary. At the same time, it's consistent, because it's cheaper if all the lid forming machines are the same, instead of having some which put the weak point on the left.",
"What happens if you rotate the can by half a turn? Doesn't the soda can now open from the left?"
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3lzinf | why particles have properties. | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/3lzinf/eli5_why_particles_have_properties/ | {
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"If you refer to fundamental properties, well, just because they have. There's really not any other answer. We don't have any other meaningful answer other than *that's just how nature is*."
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2bq4u6 | is asthma curable? beacuse it has happened 8 years since i had an asthma attack | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/2bq4u6/eli5is_asthma_curable_beacuse_it_has_happened_8/ | {
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"Many people grow out of their asthma as they get older. I used to have severe asthma when I was younger, and had to be hospitalized on occasion. However, between ages 15-20 my asthma cleared up dramatically. I still carry an inhaler, but haven't used it in years. I only carry it because it feels disconcerting to not have it in my pocket after suffering through a childhood of asthma attacks."
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654euc | why is read spelt the same as read | I mean the two tenses if you don't understand. I'm asking because i always read the past tense read as the present tense read | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/654euc/eli5_why_is_read_spelt_the_same_as_read/ | {
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"First of all, the verb *to read* isn't unusual in changing its vowel sound to indicate the past tense. There are lots of verbs that don't follow the usual *add -ed* rule of showing past tense. For instance:\n\n* *lead* ~ *led*\n* *feed* ~ *fed*\n* *meet* ~ *met*\n\nHowever, all of these are spelled differently to indicate the change of vowel sound. So why isn't it *red* for the past tense? Well, I'm afraid nobody knows for sure. English has a lot of weird spelling conventions (why does *bough* rhyme with *cow* and not *dough*?) due to inconsistent standardisation and the Great Vowel Shift, where lots of vowels suddenly changed how they were pronounced. One possible explanation is to avoid confusion with *red*, the colour, which is a very commonly used word.\n\nI hate leaving an incomplete answer, but the folks over at [/r/etymology](_URL_0_) may be able to fill in some gaps.",
"/u/violettaxe might be interested to know that the modern verb \"read\" was in Middle English (before Shakespeare's time) \"reden\", with the past tense form \"redde\" and the past participle \"red\". The form \"reden\" would have had a long vowel, the other two a short vowel.\n\nIt's not likely it was respelled to avoid confusion with \"red\": it's difficult to think of a sentence where confusion between a verb and an adjective would be even possible, much less critical; confusion between a present tense form and a past tense form is much more likely, so a deliberate respelling to avoid a merely theoretical confusion would have the effect of creating a very real confusion.\n\nYou would never get confused between \"They **lead** by example\" and \"It went down like a **lead** balloon.\" But a sentence like \"We read it\" is ambiguous.\n\nI think two things are happening at the same time. The Great Vowel Shift can help to explain the present tense form: the long vowel in \"reden\" was later written as \"ea\", but later merged with the slightly different vowel \"ee\" before that sound changed to its modern form.\n\nFor the past participle, there's an interesting fact: it seems that \"rad\" was also an acceptable spelling. That suggests to me that those two forms correspond to two groups of dialects. So I'm going to hazard a guess that the spelling \"read\" represents an attempt to represent both pronunciations. Since then, the \"rad\" pronunciation has died out, but the spelling remains."
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1nolmo | what does increasing "contrast" on a tv or computer screen actually do? | I mean, it has to do something with black and white, but what exactly? How does it work?
Thanks! :)
< 3 | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/1nolmo/eli5_what_does_increasing_contrast_on_a_tv_or/ | {
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"In the context of video displays, contrast refers to the difference between the faintest and the brightest pixel displayed. Adjusting the contrast control will usually adjust the signal amplification multiplier. The incoming video signal will indicate how intense each pixel should be. This might result in a range of 0-10 brightness for each pixel. If you adjust your contrast up, this might double each value, making your new range 0-20 and if something came in as an 8, your display might bump it up to a 16.",
"Increasing the contrast makes the blacks darker, and the whites lighter. Simple as that.",
"Everyone's pretty much covered it, it adjusts the difference between lights and darks, but [here is a nice picture illustrating it](_URL_0_). Notice how much \"flatter\" the left image looks than the right, whereas the right one the dark areas are much more pronounced and the light areas even lighter. \n\nTVs and monitors don't really do this, but overdoing it results in images that look like [this picture of what I can only assume is Jesus in his \"selfie phase\"](_URL_1_)."
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348x93 | why does the giant red spot on jupiter keep on going? if it's a storm why hasn't it just blown its self out/dispersed over time? how long will it last before it does go? | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/348x93/eli5_why_does_the_giant_red_spot_on_jupiter_keep/ | {
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"Experimental models have shown that the red spot is an extremely powerful storm, but also completely stable. Its hypothesized that it will never go away, and is a permanent feature of the planet. ",
"The Hubble observations indicate that the GRS is getting smaller by 580 miles per year along its major axis and its shape is changing from an oval to a circle. At the current rate, the storm is expected to become circular in four years. The vortex could completely disappear or grow larger, since the fate of such storms (even storms on Earth) is difficult to model and predict precisely due to their complexity. (Looked that up on Hubble's website) ",
"My professor actually explained last week something that the system of winds in Jupiter will keep the storm going as there are no physical features to interrupt it.",
"The red spot appeared soon after humans used telescopes to look at jupiter. [now, it is shrinking.]( _URL_0_). \nJust a big storm on a big planet.",
"Here is an article that talks about this question. \n\n_URL_0_\n\n**What has kept it going?**\n\nThe average velocities going around the spot are about a couple of hundred miles an hour. And the jet streams are also on the order of a couple of hundred miles per hour. But the estimates of the vertical velocities are really, really small. They’re in the order of inches per hour, not hundreds of miles per hour, and because of that, they’ve largely been considered unimportant. But the vertical winds happen over a large area and they happen continually, and therefore we think they can be very important. We think that what’s trying to destroy the Great Red Spot is the heat that is being transferred into the cool top and out of the warm bottom, that is trying to restore radiative equilibrium. But we think what makes the Great Red Spot stay alive despite this radiative heat transfer is this small vertical velocity.\n\nThere’s a rule of thumb that as winds descend, they become warm, but as they rise, they become cold. Thermal radiation with photons inside the Great Red Spot tries to equilibrate the temperature of its lid and floor with the surrounding atmosphere. This would tend to make the cold, dense lid hotter and it would eventually disappear, destroying the Great Red Spot.\n\nBut as the heavy lid starts to dissipate, pressure balance is lost. The loss of balance then allows the high pressure at the center of the Great Red Spot to push gases vertically outward through the weakened lid. As the wind rises up, it cools off, due to our rule of thumb, and resupplies cold air to the lid, re-establishing it as a cool, heavy lid. A similar process happens to the floor of the Great Red Spot and in turn re-establishes the warm floor at the bottom that thermal radiation is trying to destroy.\n\nPlus, the upward moving gas that passes through the dissipating lid goes outside of the Great Red Spot, eventually stops rising, and is pushed outward horizontally over an area that is very big compared to the area of the Great Red Spot. It then stops moving outward and descends. That descending gas pushes the atoms and molecules of the atmosphere that surrounds the Great Red Spot downward, greatly lowering their potential energy. Finally the gas completes its journey by returning home to the center of the Great Red Spot. On its final return trip home, that gas harvests the potential energy that was liberated from the atmosphere that surrounds the Red Spot.\n\nThe harvest of that energy is what balances the loss of the Great Red Spot’s energy from thermal radiation. In a computer simulation, you can actually measure the direction and magnitude of all the energies that go in and out of the Great Red Spot, and the whole energy budget balances very nicely. You’ve got this great drain of potential energy in the atmosphere in the area surrounding the Great Red Spot due to this circulation of gas, but it’s OK because the sun re-establishes radiative equilibrium in that surrounding area and re-supplies its energy. So, ultimately, the source of energy that prevents the Great Red Spot from being destroyed is the sun.",
"Shear stress in the atmosphere from the rapid rotation of the planet. It's like a giant version of the eddies you see in the water when you are rowing a boat.\n\nEach of the bands on Jupiter is a strip of atmosphere moving really fast, [about 28,000mph at the cloud tops](_URL_2_). At different latitudes these [bands of atmosphere move at different speeds in different directions](_URL_1_) and the shear stresses at the boundaries are enormous. Most of the time it's (very) roughly laminar flow, but there are enough imperfections (those giant billowing white structures you see in some of the [zones and bands](_URL_0_)) in the flow that periodically an eddy forms. If it gets large enough the moving bands of atmosphere will perpetuate it, keeping it rolling like a marble between your hands. That's essentially what the Great Red Spot is.\n\nThe Earth has similar atmospheric banding called [Hadley Cells](_URL_3_) but we have only 3 north and 3 south of the equator with relatively mild winds. The airflow in the Hadley Cells is, in part, what determines which regions of the earth will be wet or dry. Venus, by comparison to either Jupiter or the Earth, has only one of these atmospheric bands on either side of the equator as Venus has a low rotation speed, thick atmosphere, and relatively low wind speeds.\n\nOn Jupiter, most of the force for the banding and the storms comes of the extremely rapid rotation (9.9 hours for a full rotation compared with 24 hours on the Earth) of the planet.",
"TL;DR Because there is nothing to stop it. \n\nOn earth, hurricanes form and can exist over the ocean, once they hit land they quickly disperse. This is because of drag from the surface; as the wind push against the solid ground it looses some of it's energy. With harder ground come more resistance which saps more of the storm's energy. Since water is far more fluid than earth (duh) there is much less resistance so storms can grow larger and last longer. This is why tornadoes can never get as big as hurricanes or last as long. Jupiter, unlike Earth, may not even have a surface. It's around thirty vertical miles of clouds and then a lot more metallic hydrogen made liquid by the massive pressure. It's possible Jupiter might not even have a solid core. Since there is little to no surface to cause drag and slow down the storm, it just keeps on going.",
"So as if in the movie, Interstellar, is it possible that the gravitational pull on Jupiter is that much slower than our perception of time that it is in fact an average-timed storm? ;)",
"Scientists aren't sure, but in recent years it has been observed to be shrinking. At the same time, other large storms have formed nearby. There is the possibility that they will merge, which suggests the possibility that this is how the GRS formed in the first place... none of which is certainty.",
"There are some great answers here regarding Jupiter. Let me give a little context for earth though.\n\nBig storms like this, both on earth, and (it would appear) on Jupiter, are driven by convection. Air is warmed in lower levels of the atmosphere, rises, and begins to rotate due to the Coriolis Effect.\n\nOn earth, these big storms are called hurricanes (or typhoons), and they are the product of heat generated by the sun striking the earth's surface. This heat source is fickle, though. It's dependent on the angle of the sun, the surface the storm is over, and the weather in the days before the storm (clouds block heat from reaching the surface).\n\nThis means that storms tend to be short lived, surviving so long as they're in a fairly uniform environment, and weakening once their environment changes. We see this when hurricanes make landfall, but it can also happen when storms are moving so slowly that they start to choke off their own energy source by cooling the atmosphere around them with rain, and shade from their clouds.\n\nOn Jupiter, at least as far as I understand it, the heat source is primarily heat generated by the enormous pressure in Jupiter's atmosphere, as it's much further from the sun. This is not so fickle an energy source, and the storm never makes 'landfall', there's no land, which would disrupt it's normal convective currents.\n\nAs such, it's likely that the storm is actually changing due to broader changes in the global weather pattern, rather than because it's dying in the typical earth-like fashion, due to a change in its local environment that cuts off the energy supply.\n\n**EDIT:** Stupid apostrophe's. Why your so hard?",
"That storm is freakishly big(two earths IIRC) so it takes a long time to dissipate. Add the environment of Jupiter to that and you have your answer. It has changed color, disappeared and reappeared multiple times in the past. ",
"Is it possible to physically land on jupiter?",
"You might be familiar with a certain perpetual whirlpool here on earth in the north pacific. You probably remember it from history where navigators used it to go back and forth to America. It's powered by the sun and will likely continue doing what its doing well after you're gone. I suspect the storm on Jupiter is like that, a solar powered swirl, and works like the one on earth, where one area is heated and expands and another is cooler so you end up with current. As others have said, if Jupiter has a solid surface, its under an ocean of liquids and so a storm can spin unimpeded.",
"Two jets streams flowing in opposite directions is one thing thing that is accounting for it. Current theories based on how vortices work Earth say that it should ended a while ago. Newer 3D models are trying to replicate the GRS, but don't account for the sphericity of Jupiter, and compressibility factors. \n\nSource:\n_URL_0_ \n\nAlso i am a aerospace engineering student ",
"The storm is an antibaric low pressure system. The only system like this that has been observed in the universe is on Jupiter.",
"Is it possible it just absorbed a huge comet sometime in \"recent\" history, which created that?",
"[i'm just going to place this here](_URL_0_) there we go, enjoy. Thats a good one. A little outdated, but good",
"Saw on a science show years back that an equivalent storm on earth would be the size of Florida and have 300+MPH wind.",
"It's worth noting that the storm is not eternal. It's been around for as long as we've had a telescope, and it'll probably be around for quite some time, but it may very well have formed around just a hundred or so years before the invention of the telescope. And it could very easily dissipate and never return.\n\nIn the grand, cosmic timescale of our solar system's history, the GRS might just be a blip on the radar.",
"As ELI5 as I can make it, the reason weather is as weird on Earth as it is is because we have mountains and canyons and oceans. Things that break up wind flow and redirect storms. I live in an area where wind should not exist but because of a small pass in the mountains(Cajon Pass), we can get 60 mph winds. \n\nJupiter has no mountains. It is made of mainly gas (that becomes liquid then solid gradually because of pressure) and there are no obstructions. That means winds can flow as fast and as long as possible because there's nothing to change their path. That's why we see the bands on the gas giants. They're the path of wind. \n\nThe Red Spot is interesting. It is a hurricane that formed on Jupiter. If you know anything about hurricanes on Earth, they can go for a long time over ocean, but dissipate really quickly on land. Because Jupiter is practically a giant ocean(albeit liquid Hydrogen and Helium) the storm goes on. And goes on. And goes on.",
"The short answer is, because it's extremely huge, and huge things take longer to do almost anything compared to smaller examples of the same thing.\n\nAn elephant takes longer strides than a mouse, but if you only count how fast they can move their legs in the same time, the mouse far outpaces the much bigger animal. By the time the mouse has moved its legs many times, the elephant takes only one step.\n\nIn the same way, comparatively sized storms on our planet -- hurricanes/typhoons -- burn out in a matter of weeks. But the Great Red Spot on Jupiter's face is 2-3 Earths across -- *many* times the size of the biggest storms ever seen on our planet, and in fact several times the size of our *entire* planet. It will take a lot longer for that storm to burn out than any storm here, because there's just so much more matter and energy involved in it.\n\nMore, Jupiter has no surface features to impede any storms. The entire planet is one giant ocean of (mostly) hydrogen. (And yes, if it was a lot bigger, it would be a star: At an estimated 13 jovian masses, the same structure would be a brown dwarf.) So storms can rage there as long as there's energy to feed them and the immediate region remains unstable; which can be a very long time.\n\nThe Spot was first noted in 1635, and is expected to persist indefinitely. It may be a more or less permanent feature of the planet's equatorial wind patterns.\n",
"A lot of people are answering in the most physical terms, but there's been a lot of theoretical research on this in chaos theory. Have to go to work now but [this article](_URL_0_) seems like a friendly overview of how chaos theorists see it. IIRC a model has actually been independently programmed that shows a spot of isolation persisting in a sea of turbulence on a virtual planet using a simple system of equations that generate chaotic behavior.\n\nTL;DR: It's not just about the explicit physics, it's about the mathematical nature of turbulence and chaos!",
"Man it's cool to think that there is a storm goin on over there... No one is there but it's still going on, you know? I just think thats awesome.",
"Not sure how reputable this guy is in all honesty, but it is neat to think about..\nNassim Haramein made a documentary called \"Black Whole,\" where he made a claim that the latitude of the storm on Jupiter (largest storm in the solar system), correlated with the latitudes of Olympus Mons (largest volcano in the solar system), Hawaii (Earth's oldest active chain of volcano's). Interestingly, all are at roughly 22°, give or take a degree.\n\nCoincidence or not? You decide!"
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[],
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"http://nautil.us/issue/22/slow/jupiter-is-a-garden-of-storms"
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"http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Atmosphere_of_Jupiter#Zones.2C_belts_and_jets",
"http://csep10.phys.utk.edu/astr161/lect/jupiter/atmosphere.html",
"http://www.psi.edu/epo/visualizations/jupiter.html",
"http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hadley_cell"
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"http://www.space.com/23708-jupiter-great-red-spot-longevity.html"
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"https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Z1tIS-S-Mqw"
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[],
[],
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"http://www.nytimes.com/1985/11/12/science/jupiter-s-baffling-red-spot-loses-some-of-its-mystery.html?pagewanted=1"
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33jbi9 | how is the age of a wild animal determined? | I was just reading a news article from a year ago, in which they found a 103 year old orca whale. It led me to wondering how they knew that this orca was 103 years old!
If anyone is interested, here is the article: _URL_0_ | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/33jbi9/eli5_how_is_the_age_of_a_wild_animal_determined/ | {
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"There are many ways to tell the age of an animal, usually it is done via dentition. However, in the case of Orcas and other marine mammals the only real way is through large photo databanks. Photos of the orcas, especially their dorsal fins can tell you exactly who is who based on the size, shape, colouration, and scars. \"Granny\" the 103 year old Orca was probably placed into a databank long ago, and her features noted. Every once and a while very old orcas are spotted. Now that we have much more comprehensive [photo] databanks we will be able to learn more about the longevity of marine mammals over the coming decades."
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ajgdp2 | how come older video games have fewer glitches | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/ajgdp2/eli5_how_come_older_video_games_have_fewer/ | {
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"Part of it was that older video games were simpler, and thus had less opportunity for glitches to arise. Part of it was that older video games were a lot stricter on finding glitches, since you couldn't just fix it later with a patch. Once the game was released, that was it. It was done. While modern games still try to fix glitches before the game is released, they are a bit more relaxed because they know they can fix it later. ",
"Old video games took exponentially less lines of code. The difference between a 2d nes game and dynamically rending 3 dimensional hit boxes in an online multiplayer is just staggering orders of magnitudes.\n\nSo even if they made only 1/10 of the errors they did back in the day, it's still many more errors just because of how much more modern games are doing",
"Older video games didn't have the ability to be patched post launch, so what they shipped was what people got. Kind of why a lot of glitches have become infamous. If a game now has a glitch, the developers will just fix it.",
"Much simpler code is a big one. I think Doom 3, from the early 2000s, has something like over 100k lines of code. Super Mario World likely has absolutely nowhere near that. And I can just imagine how big AAA title code bases are these days.\n\nAnother thing is, when it came out, that's it. No patches (unless you were on PC then you might be able to send in for a patch on floppy or something). So it had to be right the first time around unless you wanted to spend an absolute ton of money recalling all those cartridges and discs and sending Everyone a fixed copy. That would cost them crazy amounts of money, millions at least.\n\nFinally, since update patches are so easy to send out these days, Some companies just don't *care.* Lots of big bugs in your software but the holiday season is starting? Ship it now, we'll fix it later, rather than postponing release like the old days.",
"The average SNES game was about 1-4 Megabytes of code and assets. The average PS4 game is 30-60 Gigabytes. Around 20,000 times as large. \nWhich one do you think is going to be the most difficult to debug? ",
"If you watch speedrunners of older games, you'll learn very quickly that older games have just as many glitches. \n\n & #x200B;\n\nWe just didn't have the internet at the time to hash them out as quickly. If you look at Mario Bros speedrun, they us a good number of glitches. And a lot of speedruns need a glitchless category because the actual glitches make the speedrun no fun to watch. ",
"Newer games are just more code. The more code, the more bugs in the code.\n\nThe number of bug per line of code even tends to go up as the size of the program increase, as interactions between different systems in the games becomes a lot more complex. \n\nI just checked [Doom3's code](_URL_0_), it's 363297 lines of code. From my experience, a modern AAA game is about 25-60 times more code. \n",
"Pokémon Red/Blue is old and really glitchy! I saw some guy exploit a glitch he found so much, to the extent he could execute arbitrary code he wrote within the game!",
"They shipped a completed product that was fully tested to the best of their abilities and carefully and meticulously reviewed in house before sending out to customers because the practice was at the time that you needed to sell a quality good so that your company didn’t collapse. Now you have addicts and people chasing new fixes because the quality of content has fallen and the only lures are hyped up gambling mechanics designed to lure out the addictive personality traits in people and generally children. Once in a while though a quality game is made which restores some hope in the disenfranchised players who have started to lose interest."
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ardowj | why does gifs and videos sometimes buffer twice? | Sometimes after i've seen the gif once it pauses to buffer on the second view. | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/ardowj/eli5_why_does_gifs_and_videos_sometimes_buffer/ | {
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"Lets say its dark and you want to fill a cup with water. Its your first time ever filling this cup. You like your water all the way to the top of the cup, and some bad cup designer didnt put a lid or marker to let you know it's full. So you pour and pour, and you hit the top but oops! You spilled. So, you take the time to remember how big the cup is. Now, you drink and you're still thirsty, so you start filling up again - but this time since you know how long it takes to fill your cup you know to stop and you dont spill and you drink happily until you're no longer thirsty!"
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5xl43i | why are so many us veterans homeless? why are they in this position or how did they get to this point (generally speaking) | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/5xl43i/eli5_why_are_so_many_us_veterans_homeless_why_are/ | {
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"I'd think that most of our veterans are taken care of. MOST.\nI'd also wonder why some aren't.\nWhat we want to do is not have any veterans.",
"There are problems with PTSD and substance abuse that result from being in active war zones. There's the problem that military certifications aren't always transferrable to non-military jobs. So an army paramedic can't just become an ambulance driver. They have to go through redundant training (time and money) to be \"qualified\" to do the job they already do. The VA in too many places aren't staffed or funded or managed well enough to be able to help people in a timely manner. It's always a big campaign issue that's never really solved.",
"My guess is primarily because many military occupations don't translate well to civilian opportunities. ",
"Lots of reasons: PTSD ain't no picknick. \n\n Some people signed up because they had no other option, turns out service didn't change that. \n\nContrary to popular imagination, most skills learned in the military aren't valuable in civilian life. Polishing your boots, shooting a gun, and taking orders isn't valuable in a society where everyone wears sneakers, settles differences peacefully, and are free to make own decisions. \n\nMaybe you're lucky and learn to drive a truck or run a warehouse, but if you don't you're out of luck. \n\nAfter service you're in much the same situation as before, except you're older and have some bad memories. If you didn't have your life together then, odds are you don't have it now, either. \n",
"Beyond the mental and medical issues veterans face, most military career fields have little to no documentation that the public or private sector accepts that the individual has the training and can do the job they are applying for. Have been on the receiving end of this since i got out in mid 90's. Did a hitch in Air Force as avionics maintainer- and was told i needed to go back to school for four more years at cost of 80-90 thousand per and also pay for the Airframe and Powerplant Licence before i could touch an aircraft.Did second hitch in the Army as Combat Engineer/Diesel and Construction Maintainer- as was told the same crap upon exit even though i SPECIALIZED in construction equipment(CAT) i \"didn't know SH*T\" and would cost top much to train- pay my own way- and NO GI Bill wouldn't cover it all- so no good job- no schooling - GI Bill wasted- and here i sit doing what work i'm \"qualified\" for..... plumbing manufacturing- got my training records- cost Uncle Sam 800,000 plus for all that training- and i pull down less than 30k a year. Just think of what most combat vets learned- without a skill usable in civilian left , the leadership they learned is not wanted or appreciated by most employers.",
"Because serving in the military and seeing active combat often causes tremendous mental and physical trauma, and because we have no \"reintroduction to society training/therapy.\" Many military members actually participate in combat situations. Being in a combat situation often means you are killing people, while other people are trying to kill you and your friends/colleagues. It is one of the most traumatic situations a human can go through. It also involves a totally different set of skills to succeed than what is sought for in a civilian job. As a result, many Vets suffer from PTSD, anxiety, and other mental health disorders, especially those who have seen active combat, although the rate is actually higher for drone operators. In addition, many suffer from feeling lost in a civilian job because what made them a good soldier does not translate to many jobs. Many vets are injured and can't perform manual labor but don't have skills for other work. In addition, due to the mental health issues, many soldiers resort to substance abuse as a way of dealing with the stress. Although most former military members readjust fairly well, a much higher percentage of them do not, compared to the overall population. Hence the disproportionate representation of vets among the homeless.",
"Because regardless of how we love to glorify war, and think we'll just go kick a bunch of asses and all be heros, that shit is horrible and fucks people up. ",
"Well the simple answer may surprise you. \n\nThey aren't. \n\nVeterans are only slightly over represented in the homeless population. 7.3% of Americans are classified as Veterans, and Veterans comprise 8% of the homeless population. However, even that doesn't tell the whole story. \n\nGiven the preponderance of the military in drawing members from backgrounds of lower socioeconomic status, the rate of homelessness among Veterans may actually be lower than the general population.",
"Because the U.S. doesn't care about its people, and people who come back with PTSD from war can't cope with life anymore.",
"Man there is some bullshit up in here. First - we don't know those claiming to be homeless are actual Veterans. We do know the country currently has a hard on for Veterans and so it's a pretty good strategy if you're homeless. Second - the FUCKING vast majority of Veterans do not and did not serve in or near combat. It takes a ridiculous amount of support personnel to wage a war today. Most who serve do so in that capacity. Third - an all voluntary force seems great on paper but what you actually get are a ton kids from poor communities with terrible education, family histories of substance abuse, and all the other crap that comes with poverty (including health issues both mental and medical). These kids sign up before issues start to manifest and then get out and are faced with the same limited options they had before but now they've got a big spotlight pointing on them and \"Veteran\" issues. This is actually a poor issue and the class division in this country. Fourth, many, many chronically homeless, including Veterans, have serious mental illness (bipolar, major/treatment resistant depression, schizophrenia) and should NEVER have been inducted. Period. Having an SMI makes it very difficult to function in a society and maintain the things that keep you \"homed.\" Additionally and compounding the mental health issue - if your service branch starts to notice you exhibiting signs of a mental illness (which should have been screened for before you were inducted but wasn't) they will do everything to force you out with an Other Than Honorable Discharge - VA isn't currently authorized by congress to treat OTH Veterans though the new Secretary is working hard to get OTH Veterans (currently about 550k in the US) access to VA mental health care. \n\nSo why are there a lot of homeless Veterans? All voluntary forces tend to suck up the desperate and serious mental illness and other mental health/substance abuse issues are automatic disqualifiers but frequently \"missed.\"",
"As a 10 year veteran, the majority is because they are lazy fucks. There are hundreds, if not thousands of programs just for veterans. An intelligent soldier would take advantage of schooling while in the service and get a degree while in and save money to be prepared to transition back to civilian life. I was medically retired and after my last knee surgery I paid off all my debts with my tax refund and saved over $500 a month. In less than a year I had over $8,000 saved in my bank account thanks to knowing what possibilities were laid ahead of me. I took finance classes and resume writing classes. It is a requirement now for 18 months prior to a soldiers ETS date, for them to enroll and go through the program called ACAP. ACAP goes over and teaches soldier how to be civilians. At ACAP soldiers are required to wear civilian clothing, NOT the ACU uniform. It goes over how to excel at doing interviews, writing resumes, using excel spreadsheets, the list of skills taught and programs that are available is long. Even during out processing the amount of briefs that a soldier is required to do in order to get out is numerous. There are VA briefings, ETS briefings, abc-xyz briefings... It takes about 1-2 months to out process the Army, if not more than that for some. If someone leaves the Army, and winds up homeless, then the is on them and nobody else. The resources are there and a smart budget will go a long way. There is no reason for a vet to be on the streets unless they want to be there.",
"Honestly, certification.\n\nWhen I was in, I maintained servers, worked on equipment worth billions in operations and in support of the entire Pacific Rim. I was a system administrator as well and could debug accounts as well as work on the circuits to connect two persons on a line through multitudes of different cryptographic and plain systems - from the highest of Classifications to Unclass bullshit.\n\nNone of that is transferable. They all want college degrees or certs from COMP-TIA. Don't have it? It doesn't matter what the fuck that training paper says you can do when you get out.\n\nI went from that straight to unemployment while looking for any civilian job. If I wasn't charismatic and able to talk my way into work when I really need to, I'd be homeless as well.\n\nNow I Scuba Dive. I went from facilitating international rendezvous over secure circuits and globally administrative duties... to working at a tattoo shop, then an arcade, now Scuba Diving and doing college.\n\nNone of your skills are marketable. Nobody gives a shit.\n\nThey tried to remedy this with TAPS - when you get out they make you take a class for resume writing. Guess what?\n\nNo civilian certs? You have a really long piece of toilet paper unless you want to go back into government work.",
"Military jobs tend to be very specialist in ways that don't translate to the real world. One of my relatives is a signals operator (radio guy) in the Canadian Army. He's done 4 major things in his 15 years in which included deployment to Afghanistan: Drive LAVs, shoot weapons, talk on radios, and \"fix\" computers (literally operating a hard drive imaging box - stick a hard drive in, press a button, take hard drive out). None of these things have a lot of real world applications and he's in a tech trade. He's getting out in a year. Trying to find a job with these qualifications isn't going to happen so he is immediately going to school when he gets out. \n\nMy relative is basically spending his last year fighting the Army for compensation for all the damage he's done to his body in the time he's been in which includes a bad knee and shoulder, a messed up back, and significant hearing loss. People who don't get that compensation/medical care after they leave or don't have the ability for retraining are far less able to get a job than the average person. This is particularly bad for anyone who leaves with untreated mental issues, such as PTSD.\n",
"Vet checking in. Combat MOS for those wondering.\n\nMany of these comments are somewhat right, but a big piece of the puzzle is missing. Yes, PTSD sucks ass, but most of us manage/channel/and/or don't have it. Most vets haven't seen combat, contrary to some of these posts. The worst a lot of people have seen/heard is a mortar impact. The training, while getting better (IMHO. I received a lot of \"life experience credits\" for a Bachelor's coming from a combat MOS), still has a lot of catching up to do as pointed out. It is *extremely* hard to adjust to civ life after being in for some people, especially after multiple tours overseas. This is where I believe the missing piece is. Institutionalization. Having such routine, discipline, and structure attached to everything is difficult to part from. Going from that to being able to grow your freedom beard (or, should I say \"allowed\" to emphasize the point) is kind of mind blowing. Purpose and duty to mundane and boring AF is a brutal change.",
"There was nothing set up to take care of vets when they got back from war back in the day. It was a standard job for most men",
"Easy! Those homeless you see are lying. The few who are veterans fucked up just like any other homeless person",
"A lot of people are citing the combat illness. There are other factors. While the overwhelming majority go on to be successful in their lives, others are chasing the successes they may have had while serving.\n\nThere is a comradery you get with others that you serve with. Its not just a job... It's a life style. Often times when 'Home' you could still spend upwards of 100 hours or more a week at work. There is a constant push for training, operations, and work while on the job so there is often not a whole lot of down time depending on what branch of service you signed up for. While deployed an average work week could be longer but off time is spent with the same people you were at work with and everyone is on edge after a few months in theater.\n\nThis situation where you are constantly busy really leaves no room for quality down time. Most people handle it just fine and go on to be successful but there are some that get burnt out by the strenuous and rigorous life style.\n\nSome go on to a civilian life style after a successful military career and fail horribly because they aren't constantly pressured. These guys needed the timelines to be crunched and have a feeling of their new life is not meaningful. Depression can come from many directions and when you were a part of a group that had tight deadlines where lives were on the line constantly, going to a non military career could seem pointless.",
"As someone who had a best friend who served in Afghanistan, I will give you my take on it. A lot of soldiers that end up joining are lower income people looking to better their lives but what comes with poverty is tons of issues. People who are impoverished have higher percentages to have criminal records, lower education, high chances of substance/alcohol abuse, and untreated mental disorders.\n\nOnce an individual serves the above problems are likely to be exasperated. Once an individual leaves the army, they are more likely to suffer substance/alcohol abuse, mental disorders (PTSD, etc), and finally are untrained for the civilian workforce. So once they leave they get double dose of all these issues. \n\nOne things that the military does in the US is scout for recruits in impoverished areas. Think rural communities and inner cities. It also doesn't help things that juveniles are sometimes given the option to join the army or go to jail. \n\nI still remember the recruiters coming into my tiny rural high school promising thousands of dollars for signing up. This leads to a large number of individuals who are dirt poor to enlist. \n\nMy friend and I no longer talk because once he came back he fell into the same merry-go-round he was in before he left. Last I heard he was running a lab somewhere in our home town homeless. \n\nEdit: One last thing I forgot to mention. Most of the military is made out of people who are in poverty. Once you get up into the officer ranks this is no longer true. To be an officer you have to have a college education. People who become officers are less likely to come from impoverished households. Officers by the way are less likely to see combat. They are considered to important to loose. The ones that will always see combat are your grunts who are typically with out a college education and are likely to come from impoverished households. This has been a huge issue for the army for a long time. Vietnam is a good example of this sort of thing. During the draft, for instance, they were more likely to draft people who were impoverished. This led to protests which then created the lottery type draft where nearly every male was eligible regardless of occupation or whether or not you were in college. With this lottery it helped America eventually end the draft. ",
"Like everyone is saying, all the amazing shit you did in the military doesn't count towards anything in a civilian job unless you can express it on a resume properly, and lots of vets can't.\n\nHere's a couple pro-tips for vets.\n\nHave you ever signed for anything (of course you have) then you \"successfully managed and maintained equipment valued at (whatever cost...HMMWVs are about a quarter million bucks BTW)\"\n\nEver had to teach a class (you probably did) then you've \"successfully trained and prepared x number of personnel\"\n\nEver lead a detail or held a leadership position? Then you \"supervised x number of employees\"\n\nShit like that.\n\nI put all this crap on my resume and got a job before my terminal leave was even over so I think I'm decent at spinning the army crap into relateable BS. Then when you get the job work your ass off, civilians are fucking lazy and everyone is used to that so if you actually fucking work you're automatically in the top percentage of quality employees\n\nEdit: if anyone wants, inbox me and I'll help you spin your military shit into something real too\n\nAnd another pro-tip for like everyone...print your resume on different color paper. Like a subtle difference than plain white, nothing crazy but when there's a stack and the guy sees one that's slightly more blue or whatever he might pull it out first.. which is good\n\nEdit. . . again: Rip my inbox. ",
"Vet here. I agree with previous posters - I had to go back to school to get a degree to get a decent paying job. Saw a guy a few weeks ago that was a army vet and he was in charge of a hospital and my boss just laughed because he had no degree - we finally figured out he was army and then his resume made more sense...we still couldn't hire him because he had no degree and didn't meet the minimum qualifications because of it.\n\nSome of the military MOS's need to give people equivalent civilian certs so even though the military has its own they are valid certs when people get out - like a corpsman shouldn't have to go to nursing school when they get out, same for IT professionals, maintenance, etc. If it's the same work, give people something besides toilet paper and a career set back for their service.",
"Along with the other reasons already mentioned, I just thought I would add my $0.02. \n\nPerspective is everything.\n\n\nWhile there are plenty of veterans who served honorably and successfully returned to civilian life, there are those who are predisposed towards serving something greater than themselves and tend to have the hardest time re-adapting to civilian life. Military life rewards selfless service and promotes living by a code of honor, while civilian life rewards self serving, greed based capitalism that goes so far as to use the very principles of honor based codes against those who live by them.\n\nThese two systems are diametrically opposed to each other, even though they aren't mutually exclusive. Some veterans who struggle enough will study the nature of these systems through philosophy and other social sciences. Once they come to realize the truth of this dichotomy, they are either able to adapt and overcome it or they are not. Those who either choose not to adapt, or simply can not adapt, fall by the wayside as there simply isn't any program that fills the crack in this perspective problem.\n\nAll gave some. Some gave all. Old soldiers never die, they just fade away...",
"As part of why vets end up homeless we have to also include the policies that put them in this situation. Wars became unpopular as long as we had a draft. The Vietnam War put an end to the draft and each president since has privatized it and based it on a volunteer and privatized mercenary army. As a result war is now a profit center that processes impoverished rural and inner city kids who volunteer because they think its going to improve their lives. The harsh reality is that this relieves the rest of society of any sacrifice or responsibility for our wars while it profits from it. Due to the lack of personal involvement we rally behind our government's use of Authorizations For Use of Military Force without formally declaring war. As a small portion of the population, these kids became the sacrificial cows of a modern society. Add to it the highly profitable and shabby nation building mission creep, and the automation of war with drones and the like that further insolate us from our involvement and responsibilities.\n\nJust like the shabby built nation-building infrastructure, the military gives them only enough training to do the job required in military organization structure that leaves them unprepared to compete in the civilian workforce. Once they leave the military society seems to just cast them aside as damaged goods. My father was one of those damaged goods, and despite his owning his own business, he had a drinking problem that resulted in domestic violence that would cause him to loose his business, could not keep a job and eventually ended up on welfare. His drinking and abuse eventually isolated him from his own family and he became homeless.\n\n----\nDisclaimer: I am not a vet, I never served because my father who was a WWII vet made sure I didn't have to serve when he showed up at White Hall Street while I was being processed for the draft during the Vietnam War. At the time I was trying to get in the Navy to avoid field combat and being abused by my drunken father.",
"There's also a bit of a correlation/causation problem happening, I fear. When I was in the military, I saw quite a few people leave before their time was up: coping problems, drug or alcohol issues, many things. Each of these people who wasn't making it one way or another is able to be called a \"veteran\", even if they were shipped away in the middle of basic training. Frankly, many of us had enlisted because we were in need of the kind of path that was available via the military: training, food, shelter, education, feeling like you were getting your shit together -- all good if you're a bit adrift (as I was). But some adrift people don't stop being adrift. The military may well have been their last shot at being able to \"adult,\" with the alternative leading to homelessness. So, aside from PTSD-type issues that arise from military service, for others it may be that time in the military is not indicative of anything other than one last try before falling through society's cracks.",
"A lot of good answers, however the de-institutionalization of America is also a factor. During the 1970's many private and state run psychiatric hospitals were closed due the public's view of their harsh treatment of patients. A big push from this was the movie and book, \"One flew over the cuckoos nest.\"\n\nDue to the fact that the effects of war trigger many mental conditions in soldiers. After this de-institutionalization, many veterans turned to living on the streets due to the lack of adequate facilities to enter into when needing care. ",
"Has anyone mentioned the isolation that veterans experience as soon as they get out? They go from having hundreds of people in their support system to sometimes having 0.\n A lot of times the vet moves to an entirely different area immediately after separating. They have no support, none of the training transfers, and the veteran will also be experiencing massive stress from other areas too like marriage, children, etc. More often than not, Vets are the hardest working, most loyal and trustworthy people you can find. Unfortunately, our Government and VA are not any of those things. \n\nPlease thank a Vet every chance you get ",
"I worked as Homeless Coordinator for the VA (granted in a fairly rural state), so I can provide a civilian insiders perspective--\n\nfor post OEF/OIF/OND vets, the biggest issue, imo, is exactly what /u/shottylaw states [here](_URL_0_). Institutionalization.\n\nA lot of people enter the military are seeking structure, and when they leave, they find the *structure* they received isn't transferable. It's not the transferable certification that is the issue in and of itself. The problem becomes when veterans are unable to sell their certifications to civilian employers. But it's hard to get transitioning military members to see the value in learning the civvy language prior to leaving the military. Still a massive failure by the VA, imo, though. \n\nFor the older guys (pre-OEF/OIF/OND vets) PTSD always seemed to be the biggest issue for homeless veterans. Those dudes got fucked and were largely abandoned by society, and, in return, rejected society themselves. Most of the older vets I met, there was no hope in getting them housing because they don't want it.",
"I am not a vet. However this is something that really bothers me. We talk about paying for all these social services, we pay for all these wars, and we donate support rebuilding other countries but we have problems at home. We need to fix homeless and hunger problems here. Like they say on airplanes, Fasten your oxygen mask first before you help others.",
"The Dark Side no one is talking about? Some of them joined right out of High School and have never had to: manage their own money, rent an apartment, decide what to do next, find friends or a support network.\n\nThink about all the things that are on a military base. Stores, doctors, barbers, the mess hall, barracks. It doesn't occur to many servicemen all the things they'll have to look after themselves. Some people have compared it to getting out of prison.",
"A lot of homeless are not vets. They use it as a front to get beer and drug money. Also, a lot are vets. Of you know a Lil about the military you can easily spot fakes. As far as them being homeless... Ptsd",
"It's because we take hard working, aspiring young men and women and put them through hell. We break them physically, mentally and emotionally. Then, when they're no more use for killing other people we fly them home, give them a pat on the back and tell them \"good luck!\"",
"Its a combination of a number of factors and its not only limited to the US, its the same situation in other countries, doesn't matter if they see combat or not.\n\n\nMost that join the military are from poor background or special circumstances and in the army they can't hope to advance up the ranks much but the package offered is too good to pass on and its honest work. Your work experience in the military and whatever certs or courses you got there have almost no relevance to civilian employers. They want recognized degrees and relevant work experience. So these peeps end up having to take up much lower paying jobs(as compared to their military pay), might run into financial problems, turn to vices and will inevitably spiral into more desperate situations.\n\n\nI know some countries tried to remedy this by employing them into government offices in an effort to care for these people who defended the country but there is always not enough headcount to employ them all. \n\n\nIts hilarious how the government pulls in investors and corporations(especially the foreign ones) to drive the economy and to provide jobs but in the end these very businesses don't give a fuck about the very people who bleed to protect them.",
"No two veterans have the identical experiences. I served as an officer Stateside, and was basically a bureaucrat; others went through any number of special hells that we can scarcely imagine.\n\nThe human mind is a delicate machine. Hit it too hard, and it may never work properly again.",
"Combat troop, academic, non-profit manager weighing in. Many factors, including many of what's above. One huge variable being left out - childhood. Many vets were considered at risk as youth, were of lower income households and were exposed to traumatic circumstances before they joined the service. Many of these variables are correlated with unhealthy coping mechanisms, addictive behavior and dysfunctional views of self and environment. NOW pile on all the other stressors of combat, PTSD, TBI, physical injury, separation and you get chronic homelessness, suicide, substance abuse and unemployment. \n\nBut that's not the end of the story. MANY MANY veterans facing these challenges live healthy and balanced lives. The difference? The opportunity to continue their service here at home by exercising values and skills, endorsement by the community by doing so and access to resources/treatment and other vets. When these dynamics come together we see posttraumatic stress turn to posttraumatic growth. When ptg occurs, it provides fuel to the society as a whole. We call this inspiration.\n\nWhat you can do - do more than say thanks. Ask for a story and listen. Ask a vet something they learned. Remind them we still need them. Keep in mind many homeless individuals choose to be homeless. But many don't so practice this with everyone. Clinical observation shows the key to posttraumatic growth is compassion, purpose and community. \n\nSource: was homeless combat vet, now have graduate degree in social work, work with homeless vets and married with kids and a golden retriever. All because someone reminded me I was still needed.",
"Homeless is a lay term that macarades as a technical term. How one person defines homelessness is different than another. Everyone agrees that people we see sleeping on the street are. What about those with a shelter bed (still legally homeless)?. Couch surfing with family (not legally homeless). Couch surfing with friend (sometimes homeless). Sleeping in a car (homeless). About to be evicted by landlord (not homeless until the sherif arrives).\n\nEnding homelessness is easy and simple. Provide everyone with a safe and secure place to lay their head. It's less expensive than you think. In my city of 2m+ (Philadelphia), the official nightly street homeless count is 750.\n\nMany people require stable housing before working on the causal issues that got them there. Old notions of requiring 90 days of sobriety as a condition to a housing subsidy will never solve the problem. It just results in paying social workers to be the housing police and not doing what they were trained to do - help connect people to available resources and help achieve positive outcomes.\n\nVeterans have dedicated pools of funding and in Philadelphia there was a big flashy announcement that we are at functional 0 veteran homelessness. Even the people making the claim understood that it came with many caveats.\n\nMy organization (MHASP) is working on some innovative ways to use technology to help people experiencing homelessness who are resistant to accessing services to come to a center, have some immediate needs met while also being educated on what is out there to help.\n\nUpworthy just released the following video (over 1M views): _URL_0_",
"Correlation does not prove causation. Shark attacks happen more frequently when ice cream sales are highest, but that does not mean one causes the other. Shark attacks and ice cream sales both increase as the weather gets hotter. \n\nGrowing up poor makes you much more likely to end up homeless, and it makes you much more likely to join the military. \n\nPoor people join the military more frequently. If you're poor but young and able bodied you can join the military for the most part. Three meals and a bed to sleep in, after a few years you're earning a decent pay check. You get health care for yourself and your dependents, and there's a lot of people who find your job honorable. \n\nThis sounds like paradise to someone who is poor. \n\nBut the military isn't for everyone. Some of these poor people who joined just aren't suited for the military, so they stay in for 4 years or 6 or whatever. The pay isn't great those first couple years, and if they never had a dime to spend in their lives and then at 18 they start getting paychecks, they might not spend it wisely. They probably won't really. \n\nSo they leave the military at 22 or 24, after spending 4 or 6 years completely committed to a job they hated, still essentially the same poor kid who enlisted at 18, except now they're a veteran. So they're flat broke, estranged from friends and family for 4 to 6 years or whatever, with job skills that don't translate to anything they actually want to do in life. If they go back to their home town, half their friends moved to the city for college or work, the other half have settled down and started families. They don't want to move into mom's spare bedroom for the same reasons they joined the military in the first place. \n\nIf you are poor and join the military and don't like it and get out ASAP, you are going to be poor when you get out. And poor people tend to end up homeless. \n\nNot everyone who joins the military is poor, but if you're poor, if you have no opportunities, if you're the type of person who is likely to end up homeless, the military is an extraordinarily attractive option and you might not know if you can stand it or not until you try it. So you ask a bunch of homeless people if they served in the military you'll see a bunch of hands go up. It's one of the things they tried that didn't work. Homeless people don't just move from their parent's house to a cardboard box, they try things and those things don't work out. \n\nThe other responses about PTSD and mental illness and all that are correct also, but they're missing a piece. ",
"Rambo said it best.\n\"I was in charge of million dollar equipment. Out here i can't even get a job parking cars.\"",
"Vet checking in. Intel rate in the navy.\n\nI did crypto work for the navy, worked on breaking codes and actually part of my chain of command included the NSA.\n\nI got out and wanted to join the NSA or some intel agency. Nope they all wanted a degree. I was fine doing the work for them while I was in the Military, but I get out and nope. Not good enough.\n\nI ended up moving back home, got a job at a gas station. Luckily it was near NASA. One day I asked a guy if NASA needed cryptologists and he said \"funny you should ask. That's the department I manage\" \n\nNailed the interview, worked at NASA for a few years and used it to kick off my IT career.",
"Wow, finally a topic I feel I can honestly contribute to. \n\nI have worked with many homeless Vets, and have done volunteer work for years. As a few posters have said, PTSD plays a huge part in this issue, but a main factor that most people don't think of if the fact that most soldiers go in as basically children. Yes, 18 is legally an adult, but try having a conversation with an 18 year old. Ask them about a mortgage payment or what to do if they get into a failed relationship.\n\nSo ELI5, we give children a fair amount of money, teach them how to thrive in a very regimented and special environment, with emphasis on only operating as a group or unit, let them loose in the world solo and expect them to make mature, rational decisions. Some people can, some can't. People mention drug and alcohol abuse, but are confusing cause and effect. Man starts drinking because things are hard, things don't get hard because of drinking. \n\n- disclaimer - \nIndividuals are all different and this is by no means a catch all, just something that is vastly overlooked when discussing the issues of veteran homelessness.",
"This is purely speculation on my part as I haven't ever been in the military. Remember what it's like to get a job in high school? You have disposable income and no bills. You can do what ever you want with that money because if you don't have you still have a home and food. The military, especially for inlisted, seems to continue this trend. They feed and house everyone and all basic needs are meet. So their money is effectivly all disposable. They seem to miss some fundamental life skills like budgeting and paying rent and things like that. This is a purely anicdotal observation I don't mean to offend.",
"I know I'm going to be downvoted, but at least some part of this effect is that the best, brightest and most job capable tend to go to college and not the military. \n\nFrom my highschool, not a single honors student went to the military. Only a few pretty dumb dudes went to serve. My one friend who ended up in the Navy ended up there because he flunked out of college. \n\nI'm not painting a broad brush, but this is a correlation that you just can't overlook.\n\nAlso, my Navy friend said since they couldn't smoke pot (drug tests), they'd sneak off with cans of compressed air and basically get high via suffocation and killing brain cells. So maybe let them smoke a joint instead of that?",
"I'm a vet, have worked as a university coordinator for vets, have worked at an adult homeless shelter, and I can say that the big three are: non-transferable certifications, ignorance about the civilian world, and institutionalization. Everyone hits \"the wall\" when they get out, some hit it harder than others, though...",
"Most people in this country are one or two bad circumstances away from being homeless. Veterans are a particularly high risk population for several reasons. For one, they have higher rates of PTSD, which can be so debilitating that they can't attain or keep meaningful work. Substances abuse is also common, and creates professional and personal issues that can cause them to become unemployed or kicked out of their home. Some simply lose their jobs for any number of reasons and either have no savings, or their savings is quickly depleted due to co-occurring crises. Simply put, they have more problems on average, boiling down mostly to mental illness, financial strife, physical health issues, and substance abuse, and are either too proud to seek help, or lack adequate support from their families and community. \n\nFun fact that might make you feel better about the situation: in 2010, the Obama Administration set the goal to \"end homelessness\" by taking a unique approach to several major target populations: vetetans, chronically homeless, youth & families, and \"other.\" Instead of the traditional approach of \"let's fix all your problems and then get you into housing,\" which is extremely expensive on the city and very time consuming, they use a \"Housing First\" model. This basically says, let's get you in a house, and THEN worry about everything else. It's shown to be faster, cheaper, and more effective than previous approaches because it allows a person to get out of \"crisis mode\" so that they can actually focus on their other issues aside from their homelessness and achieve true stability. \n\nThis method is so effective, that we actually \"ended\" veteran homelessness in 2016. This isn't to say that we no longer have homeless vets, but we HAVE reached what's called \"functional zero.\" In my city alone we have something like 50 new homeless vets every month. But we now have the ability to house every single veteran that seeks homelessness services within 90 days of entry into the program (called SSVF), regardless of their circumstances. The actual number of homeless vets in the country on a daily basis has also gone down 47% since 2010. \n\nEdited to add another HUGE reason: lack of transferable skills from the military/no civilian job training. ",
"You can't just be trained to kill other people and do it with no hesitation, and then be expected to fit in perfectly with everyone else.\n\nThis is a major part, but not the only reason why.",
"The Army culture just fucks with your head. The worst part is that you don't realize it until it's sunk it's claws deep down in your brain and it's got you. Soldier's don't go and seek care for injuries or illnesses because they don't want to be thought of as malingerers or \"shit bags\" by their comrades or ESPECIALLY the NCOs in the unit because god help you if you get on the bad side of one NCO because now you are a shit bird and every NCO now thinks it. \nIt just builds this dystopian reality in your brain and then in 2 or 4 or 6 years or whenever your contract is up, you don't re-enlist because you're like \"this fucking blows, why would I keep doing it?\" Then they stamp your forms and out the door you go and then you realize, \"HFS. I have NO IDEA where to go from here.\" I suppose I could go to college or go to work at my friends garage but the fucked up thing is that, a lot of times, you miss the Army. Stockholm syndrome is where a captive comes to have affection for their kidnapper and I swear it's just like that. Whether you write guidance software for Boeing or sweep a floor at Chipotle, you miss you captivity and it is like a fucking ball and chain around your ankle. ",
"Marine from Minnesota here\nAnother really big problem they have is many veterans have is they spend 4 years or more in the military and get out and move somewhere away from home.\n\nDuring their time away many grow farther away from their families, and don't have a support network in a new city when something happens, and its hard enough to take advantage of VA benefits when you have a place to live, once yoy cant put an address on any of the forms, you basically arent going to be able to get any help from it. \n\nAnother big issue is the difference between the job you do there and the environment you are in because one is far more structured and you spend your time learning the ins and outs of it, only to have every single thing change.\n\nHeres one a lot of people don't agree with, but I think it needs to be addressed. A good number of people who join don't know how to take care of themselves and their finances finances because of the families they grew up in, and dont learn it while they are in, they get out, and still cant do it, and then they end up homeless. \n\nThen theres everyone who has had a drug or alcohol problem and can't be quickly rehabilitated, they get kicked out fairly quickly in my experience, meaning they dont have the time to prepare to go somewhere else, very often the money, and don't have any plan in place before they get out, meaning no school lined up, no resume and job offers waiting, no place to stay when they get kicked out, with no money to get back to somewhere where they can get the help of friends and family, and it goes downhill from there fast. ",
"A lot of times it having no marketable skills and like mentioned before, training certs. That can't be easily transfered to the civilian world. Have a buddy who repairs the electronics on helicopters as an E3, but would be making 125k+ a year doing the same thing in the civilian world, but if he tried to get back into the civilian market, he'd still have to undergo lots of training. But luckily because of his years of experience he's slightly more attractive to companies.\n\nAs for ptsd, that is a struggle, but it's also a struggle just to become a civilian again, lots of men find themselves lacking a purpose, some find it, others struggle with no longer having that high of being in a life and death situation where their actions are extremely meaningful.\n\nHow do you go from commanding a squad or platoon to some normal everyday job right. You lose the brotherhood and support structure you had while you were deployed, and you lose that purpose.\n\nPlus let's not forget many vets only have a highschool degree, and although the GI bill was meant to fix that, I know many many people who were or are in the military who just absolutely hated school, and will not be going to college after their time in the military.\n\nContracting is a viable option, making big bucks, but it's still only temporary.",
"A lot of the other reasons have been mentioned, but I will bring up a controversial one as well: not all of the people who claim to be homeless Vets are actually Vets. Or sometimes they are, but their stories of what they did in the service are highly exaggerated (and I say this as a combat veteran who volunteers at the VA).\n\nIf you haven't read it, 'Stolen Valor' by B.G. Burkett does an excellent job of shining light on the phenomenon of people who lie about their service to gain sympathy, or use it as an excuse to explain their failures.",
"As mentioned by others there are plenty of reasons; but it all boils down to one fact; the american dream failed. Being awesome all the time just wasn't sustainable, and with a military industrial complex that employs nearly 40% of the American populace, when America isn't in a war, people start losing their jobs and defaulting on their mortgages. So America keeps finding reasons to \"fuck yeah!\" all over the globe.\n\nThose who actually make it home are promised riches and bitches, but then... who's going to pay for it? So it doesn't happen. \n\nWith no sellable qualities in the civilian market, and probably some stress-related illness, maybe an addiction or two... you see where this is going? Even their own families don't want them around and with no one to provide for them, they end up on the street\n\nAnd for what? Well for freedom, of course, and little Johnny down the street, and warm apple pie\n\nAnd they call it democracy ",
"I can somewhat explain this situation. When I separated from the military I was only partially prepared for life on the outside. Unemployed for about 6 months and things were bad for a while.\n\nThe first thing is there are a lot of people who join the military to get away from problems at home. So when they get out and return home those problems are still there and an individual has just lost a strongly developed level of support the military offers. Without close friends or family ties, things can go to shit fairly quick. Furthermore, it is very common for divorce to occur not long after leaving the military. Had this happen to many friends and it was devastating even more so when piled on with leaving the military. \n\nSecond is monetary. Aside from being lucky enough to jump into overseas contracting, odds are you will never be able to match the pay and benefits you had in the military for a few years. You basically go from on top of your game to entry level and that is a serious challenge for someone used to the military. Sometimes Veterans see jobs as \"beneath\" them and decline entry level positions to hold out for jobs that are simply not available (I did this a few times).\n\nNext up, tons of military jobs do not have direct civilian equivalents. Those that do may differ significantly from the civilian side. This is even more challenging when you return home to a place far removed from any military bases. Employers may not understand the work history or be able to relate the job to experience. \n\nThis doesn't even get into various medical issues, especially mental ones or PTSD for combat veterans. In short, no money, no family support, no job, removal from close friends and such all adds up to a pretty bad day. Honestly, all of this is not much different from why many homeless people end up being in such a position. ",
"The same as most homeless persons, they have drinking and drug problems along with some mental issues. I work for a non-profit that houses a lot of former homeless Vets. Most are just out of jail, former homeless. 8/10 had a drug and drinking problem and most return to drinking after moving in. 2/10 lost their homes due to living paycheck to paycheck and something happened to them. \nThey seem to get back on their feet and stay. ",
"I haven't seen another comment mention this but I may have just missed it. As an FYI, about 11% of folk experiencing homelessness are veterans, whereas veterans make up about 7% of the general population. So there is some disproportionality but not as dramatic as it is perceived.",
"The use them and then throw them away mentality of our government. The powers that be could give two flying weasel shits about the troops, the only time there is concern is when it's a media opportunity otherwise no fucks are given. ",
"Late to the party.\n\nStrictly speaking from my (possibly special-pleading) personal experience, homelessness is way more complicated than \"do I have enough money/income to keep a roof over my head?\" although obviously that is probably the prime factor in many cases.\n\nFor me, when I left Walter Reed Army Medical Center after a 16-month stay subsequent to my \"I participated!\" experience in Iraq, I kinda knew I was still not all there upstairs, even though I had gotten a lot of very good MH treatment and been handed a paper attesting that I was competent to make my own legal, medical, and financial decisions. Well, maybe I was, but that's not really saying much.\n\nThing is, I had enough revenue coming in (mainly VA disability) that I could have paid the rent on a hole-in-the-wall somewhere and kept food on the table and the lights turned on. We're not talking Park Avenue, but a roof and food, yeah.\n\nI was in no place to manage even the modest responsibilities that would have entailed. Maybe by setting up auto-pays through my bank's online bill-pay service, maybe the rent and all the separate utilities and all that would have gotten paid every month, but this was a long time ago and that service was still pretty new. Most people weren't really doing that yet.\n\nSo I had the money. And at the time (and to this day), I was under the impression that I simply didn't have enough marbles in my head to rent a place of my own and keep my shit together, much less resume custody of my school-age daughter and be a single parent without neglecting her or otherwise being a hazard to her well-being.\n\nAbout a year later, I did feel I had recovered my faculties to where I could do all those things, so I did, and everything turned out fine.\n\nBut during that year, I was homeless and couch-surfing or sleeping in my vehicle because *I couldn't cope* with managing my own place or burdening my family by asking them to put me up (of course they would have) while I tried to pull myself together.\n\nNo idea where I'm going with this. Maybe that sheds a little light on one way such a story can unfold. Some people whose heads are in a place like that never do pull out of it.\n\n",
"Going to war and being under intense stress for long periods of time can really mess a person up. The military refused to acknowledge the psychological damage done to these people for a long time and didn't provide adequate care, and still don't. Add that to coming out of service with no education, and no real transferable job skills, and you have a recipe for disaster. \n\nTL;DR lot of guys suffering from stress induced disorders who don't have a degree or skills that transfer to society. That and the VA is a disgrace. ",
"Because we have a government that's designed to go to war more often than it's designed to handle the negative consequences of war. ",
"According to [end homelessness,](_URL_0_) the veteran homelessness rate was only 8.6% in 2014, compared to only 7.3% for the general population - the difference isn't that large these days.\n\nThe main reason is that poor people without a college education are more likely to be homeless, and veterans are likely to be poor people without a college education. Indeed, poor people are more likely to join the military in general, and enlisted people tend to join the military straight out of high school, so don't go to college. Blacks are also more likely to join the military than whites, and are also more likely to be homeless.\n\nSo a lot of it is demographics.\n\nThe other half of the puzzle is that the military also doesn't really teach people a lot of skills that are necessary for civilian life; military life is more structured, whereas in civilian life you are responsible for yourself and there's no one really telling you how to live your life, giving you a place to live, ect.\n\nMoreover, a lot of what you learn how to do in the military is fairly narrowly applicable.",
"4 years enlisted Marine Corps/ 2 years in school,\n\nI do not think mental issues are always the case either. A lot of military personnel are not exposed to the dramatic combat, but the military lifestyle in general has some after effects. A lot of military members are sort of confused as to what to do after they exit the military. And its not all the military's fault. They try to get you to have a plan but when it comes down to it the military lifestyle prevents you from planning such things.\n\nI think another thing that is overlooked is when your in the military they basically take everything you have and teach you to live out of a pack, basically homeless. Former military personnel have a lot higher tolerance for such things, as in they are taught to not be objective. I have often thought about what it would be like if I ended up homeless and it wouldn't really bother me. I would get a nice sleeping system, find a place to maintain hygiene and get enough money for food and just do my thing. I think that can be true of a lot of veterans, the idea of being homeless does not really scare them.\n\nThe biggest contributor to it, BIGGEST...people do not care. Seriously, most civilians do not give a shit, they really do not. That is why you have such fierce loyalty among the veterans and their branch, because we take care of each other...we are all we have. The population is basically brainwashed into \"thank you for your service\". Its annoying. I really don't want to be thanked, because its just a parrot and you have no idea what you are thanking me for anyway. You want to thank a vet, buy them a beer or just shoot the shit with them. Ask what they did and if they enjoyed it, or how their day is going, stop parroting thank you. Everyone \"almost\" joined, we get it, you do not have to be a tied to the military to earn our respect. If you're one of the people that thinks its stupid to thank military, that is fine too! We don't need it. \n\nI'm currently going to school to be a Mechanical Engineer, I am 26. My four years in the military and all my accomplishments are about 3 lines on my resume. I had to rewrite it because honestly companies do not give a fuck. I went to the career fair, spoke to 20ish companies...no interviews. I had an excellent GPA, good speaking ability, relevant experience, but not the extra curricular they recognized. In this current market, being a part of an after-school club holds more weight than a squad leader in the United States Marine Corps. Kids that were in fraternities, freshmen, got 4+ interviews based on their connections. People just do not care, I have since started doing the clubs after school, rewrote my resume based on that, basically removed the majority of my military experience and got 3+ interviews at the most recent career fair; with a lower GPA. I get that people do not give a shit now, I adapted, some people haven't and end up not being successful.\n\nMilitary skills are not marketable to companies, lets be honest a decent amount of people do not have a lot of options outside the military. That is not a bad thing, but some people exit the service and get stuck. The GI Bill is GOLD. They will pay for 4 years of college, not like help you through it, like you can go to a great school (not ivy league obviously) and they pay for you. Tuition, books, food, rent. I mean you won't be living like a rockstar, you have to be smart with money but its such an amazing deal. A lot of vets do not take advantage of it. Spend 4 years in the suck and then have to go do math with a bunch of kids...not exactly appealing. When I was discharged I needed to relearn math. Get up at 4:30 to go workout, work 7:30-5, study 6-7:30/8 go to bed. All that just so I had the ability to be successful my freshmen year. Basically back to square one at 24, a lot of vets have a hard time starting over like that and then all it takes is time for it to fall apart. \n\nThat is just for average case veterans, not the ones with hardcore PTSD, loss of limb, or the rampant substance abuse. So add that into it and its no surprise honestly. We just do not have enough man power or money or knowledge to fix the problem. Just my two cents.\n",
"Despite several very dedicated service men and women our military (USA) has been a dumping ground for the under-educated, socially inept, financially inadequate, and mentally unstable. It's often viewed as either a way to escape a horrible life of poverty or stay out of prison.\n\nTake an 18 year old kid who already has a weak foundation, throw him in a war zone with questionable rules, give him access to drugs, sex, and all manners of debauchery all while forcing him to do horrible things in the name of his country.\n\nIt's a recipe for disaster. ",
"It's actually not as bad as it looks from the outside. We're certainly over-represented in the homeless population but not even *most* military veterans are homeless.\n\nSo, in addition to some of the comments regarding PTSD, non-transferable skills, the types of people who enlist (especially into combat MOSs), their educational backgrounds (or lack thereof), criminal histories etc. I'd like to toss in a vote for a serious, *serious* lack of personal finance education.\n\nJesus. Horatio. Christ. do Soldiers waste money.\n\nA lot of the low-to-mid enlisted come from a lower socioeconomic background and have never had \"so much money\" in their lives. However, what they don't understand is that we really don't get paid all that much in the grand scheme of things. That money burning a hole in their pocket, enabling them to buy 'dat Lam, those Jordans, and a 70\" 4K television is only freed up by the fact that we (generally) don't pay for housing, healthcare, or food (though they'll still order our instead of eating at the dining hall which wastes taxpayer money as well as their own) as an entitlement of service. Once they get out, whether by choice or chapter, they have no idea how to function on a realistic budget which includes all those things, plus incidentals, without the benefit of someone (usually your PL/PSG) breathing down your neck to be responsible.\n\nNot to mention that at least 50% of the time they're worse off when they leave because of the debt they've accumulated in-service *still* managing to live beyond their means.\n\nOh, and [redacted for political correctness] dependents: more than a few soldiers will marry for BAH so they don't have to live in the barracks. Except that's not the right reason at all. In the event they separate*/divorce they now have alimony and child support to pay.\n\n*The Army doesn't recognize separation. You're either married or single. So whether you're separated for a month or five years, you're still responsible for your spouse. The implications of this could be, say, them living in a house on your BAH (with you not being allowed to live there) while you pay rent/mortgage elsewhere.\n\nSource: Am Army Officer\n\nEDIT: Also, your money is your spouse's money. They will enforce this. Keeping your spouse from spending your money is considered abuse and you will get fucked up for it.",
"Well, if you're willing to give up your whole life in your home country and go risk being killed in a foreign land just to do a shitty job for a shitty pay, your life here must already be pretty fucked up before you get into the military, so why would you think that would change when they leave the service?\n\nThis is one of the things in the \"American mindset\" that kind of pisses me off: one day a guy is seen by everyone as \"inferior\", because he doesn't have a job or a good education and is poor; then he spends a few years in the shittiest job there is because it was the only option for him, and now he's expected to be a full-blown fucking superhero, with the highest moral standards and a good and stable life with great relationships with all of those around him.",
"On top of everything already mentioned, which is completely accurate, it can be hard to transition into a civilian world that lacks the discipline, give it 110% or get smoked till you're motivated attitude, never accept defeat mentality. The culture is a complete 180 and can be hard to assimilate. It can be hard for a vet to keep their job when they see how the real world functions... and they realise they just don't fit in. One tiny aspect of it IMO.",
"Joining the military stunts personal growth. It's like being an adult with a baby sitter and not having to be as responsible for your finances, meal planning, and other things that normal young adults do who don't live in barracks. You always have someone looking out for you, and you won't always have that outside of the military.\n\nAdd that to a culture that promotes alcohol abuse, driving on even if you're having legitimate problems, and the idea that you're all the toughest humans ever, even if you're not. You still have to deal with everything you experience, but most won't because it isn't taken serious at a soldier level.\n\nSo you've got a 22 year old kid with zero education, a drinking problem, war horrors he probably hasn't dealt with yet, and he's being reintegrated back in to society. It's a recipe for disaster.",
"The US sends people to fight who already have nothing. When the armies done, they send them back to nothing - with added psychological problems.\n\nMakes perfect sense that it would all fall apart for these people. ",
"I dont know either, but maybe the war had a effect on there perception of reality. To the point that the illusion of the American dream does not entertain them any longer.",
"I don't have any science to back this is, but I am a mil brat who has lived 20+ years in an army town, dated a marine, etc etc....\n\nI think it's worth noting the \"kind\" of people that join the military. A huge number of guys join in the first place because they feel like they have no \"direction.\" They thrive in that setting because it is regimented and are told what to do, how to act, where to be.... You take an institution that attracts a large number of people that don't have self-guidance and I think you will naturally end up with people who continue as drifters when they get out. ",
"Lot of people who claim to be vets are not. The VA has massive funds to help vets but a lot of them do not want to go. They feel the VA and Doctors are bad for some reason. Most vets have never seen any combat and play it like they are combat vets. No one wants to confront a vet but literally you have thousands and thousands of vets who use other peoples military experience as their own.\n\nMental Health is the big issue and its not just vets. I was homeless (not that pretend shit where you bounce house to house) for 2 years. I seen a few vets out of the thousands in San Jose living on the streets. Most do not consider themselves homeless. They live in their cars or in tents. \n\nIf you can become homeless after being a cook in the military you can be homeless working at McDonalds.",
"As a veteran myself I believe the biggest problem is a lack of actual education about life after the military. The military makes it a long check-in-the-box process of getting out and people tend to not pay attention when sitting in the dozens of classes required to exit the military. By not understanding all the resources available to help, vets can fall back on behavior that was acceptable in a very structured lifestyle but not wholly acceptable in the unstructured civilian life they are entering and this leads to self-destruction. ",
"A lot of people are going to disagree and or call me insensitive. The hard honest truth is simple. They *want* to be homeless. There are so many resources available to people, particularly veterans (however most homeless \"veterans\" simply are flat out liars, and never were in the military), that the only way you stay in the street is if you want to. They want the freedom of being able to do whatever it is they want. People can control themselves more than they are given credit for or even know themselves. Some people pick drugs or alcohol over a home, some just don't want to work a job. Others just don't want to try. Think I like getting up at 4am and working 12+ hours a day at 2 jobs? Fuck no. But I do it. Because we have to. In order to have a home and a vehicle and phone I have to get up and do things I don't want to do. A large chuck or homeless people say \"fuck that I'm not doing that\" and that's completely fine. If you have never tried to help or actually talk to a homeless person, I highly suggest you do so. Every time I've attempted to help or talk to a homeless person, within 2 minutes they have said 30 things that 100% convince me that they are homeless by choice only. ",
"Legitimate question. I hope to offend anyone either. \n\nWhere is the money they make while serving? How much are their expenses while serving? \n\nThe reason I ask is usually people who work jobs have a savings account. And if they plan on getting a new job usually have savings to back up on while they transition. Just curious why the military doesn't teach them to save xxx amount of money to say live for a year while they transition back and find new careers. \n\nNot speaking of the substance abuse issues. That's a whole different topic. ",
"They go in as young adults, never learn how to manage their money, have free housing and food, so when they get out, they have a paltry amount left with a 40000 mustang at 17% interest with a baby momma who works as a stripper and thinks her etsy page is the best thing since sliced bread.",
"I spent 5 years in as an 11b, got out in 2011 and have been homeless 3 times for various reasons. One was due to shitty job market, one was self inflicted (not wanting to deal with a roommate that sold drugs) and most recently, this past October and November because the Veterans Services Commission of Hamilton County not being able to provide assistance due to my not having a job. Now I'm working a steady, being utilized to nowhere near my potential, with bills that outweigh my income. Life as a civvy is great!",
"10 year veteran here. (I'm doing fine- I saved up a quarter of a million dollars, got about 7 cyber certs and a cyber bachelor's when in Cyber is blazing hot right now.) \n\nSome service members came straight out of high school. They maybe didn't spend that much time in \"the real world.\" Maybe they didn't exactly fit in anywhere else but military worked. They got used to being totally covered for housing, medical care, commissary food prices. They got used to a job where if you show up in uniform, you get paid every 2 weeks. You don't have to make sales quotas or follow market trends and your company basically can't go out of business no matter what you do or don't do. \n\nI know lots of service members who live paycheck to paycheck. They know when Pay Day is because that's when they can afford to buy more food and not before. Maybe they have a big shiny and/or fancy car (SUV? Charger? Mustang? 350Z?) with payments and maybe some maxxed out high interest (19%+ ?!?) credit cards. \n\nThey were probably told they can and should get some college credits in, but they didn't really feel like it after work and especially not when they were deployed. They didn't pay close attention to their VMET (big document with what all their skills translate to in the real world.) They didn't get many other, if any certs. They didn't score that Department of Labor Apprenticeship in their career field by logging in the 2,000 hours. They didn't start networking with friends and folks in their field before they got out. They spend a lot of time drinking and just relaxing after work, which is fine, but they didn't do much if any of that other nutritious stuff. \n\nNow imagine they get out without planning for it. Either they decided not to re-enlist just a few months before they got out, or they got tossed out for some bad stuff that got out of control. Every service member goes to a mandatory separation class where they are taught about interviewing and resumes and getting their skills together, but it didn't sink in. They didn't pay that much attention, it was hard to believe, that's a lot of work to get all together. \n\nNow layer PTSD or any other health problems with this sort of tuned out attitude to make it even worse. (Or even without it, the tuned out part can be pretty damaging.) They could file their medical record with the VA and even get some health care and maybe even a little money each month in compensation- but they never got around to it, they don't like paperwork. They don't really have a good idea how to turn artillery specialist into a usable job skill, or who they'd even apply with and they lost the copy of their resume they had from TAPS. They don't get that paycheck every two weeks and they're upside down on their car so it's gone pretty soon. Without a car, how are they going to get to job interviews? It all seems too much. They crash on friends' couches for a while, but that welcome wears out eventually. Well, no problem, they've camped in harsh places before so a city park isn't going to be that bad, just for a little while. A little of that and their clothes are getting grubby and getting a job seems totally out of the question. \n\nI guess my theory is that a small but non-zero percentage of people in the military are sort of tuned out, and doing the minimum to get buy. The military supports that and props it up with a giant framework of steady paychecks, housing, food and health care. Even people who are kind of tuned out can usually score a job with a friend somewhere that also doesn't mind if they do the minimum, but a few can't. They also don't know how to or don't have the right attitude to make the most of the support they could get from the VA. Some have all of the above compounded by health issues like PTSD, but the law has a button that is (in theory) supposed to expedite PTSD for the VA to support people with a PTSD diagnosis. I don't know every veteran's story of course, but I know there are PTSD folks who have seen some SHIT, and still gotten themselves to therapy and fought their way through it. For whatever reasons, not every veteran has the knowledge or will to fight their way through the paperwork and job applications it takes to function in our society, so without some external help (which they might even be resistant to) they drop out to the bottom.",
"My experience in observation is this:\n\n-any knucklehead that served 180 days in training is considered a veteran, whether they served a full term or washed out because of being overweight, injured, pt failure, got in trouble.\n\n-a shitbag that goes in as a problem child and gets kicked out for being a shitbag will blame the rest of his life's failures on the military.\n\n-anyone can write \"homeless Vet\" on a sign and have never served. I ran into a \"Vet\" asking for money in LA whose unit was the 4077th Semper Fi and did his basic training in Compton.\n\nNow, for real full term vets the problem is just as others have described: non-transferable job skills. We are the best cops, firefighters, etc but have to struggle to get into the job market like anyone else.\n\nFederal jobs have a ton of nepotism attached to them so even those are a struggle to get. Hell, trump has nepotismed the shit out of the White House jobs!\n\nThe \"feel goods\" who were hiring recent vets realized that we are coming out with a ton of PTSD issues and can be a liability plus the veteran first job initiative can just be a bunch of smoke and mirrors.\n\nThere are a ton of Vet/Military websites all spouting off job opportunities but they all boil down to the excact same hiring source: USAJOBS.\n\nNow we also have a ton of successful vets but the reality is that the dirty drug addict holding a homeless vet sign will get all the notice. \n"
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5gbszw | how do big tech companies make money off of free services (especially those without ads e.g. google maps)? | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/5gbszw/eli5_how_do_big_tech_companies_make_money_off_of/ | {
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"Because it keeps you in their ecosystem, making you more likely to use other products by them which they do make a profit from, either by selling the service or by using the collected data they have on you for target advertisements. \n \nAlso, Google makes Android, having no 1^st party navigation will push the device manufacture (Samsung, HTC, etc.) to make their own system, which is what happens with cars and they almost all suck (thankfully my new car has Apple CarPlay/Android Auto).",
"Of note, Google provides Maps as an API / service to other developers and charges a fee for use beyond some reasonable number of requests. That is, if you build an app that shows a map to users you can show it, say, 10,000* times a day. Beyond that you would purchase blocks of requests, say $1 per additional 10,000 requests. Google provides a lot of developer-friendly services and APIs similar to this which can also come at a cost.\n\nThis trend is not solely used with Google. Companies like Amazon and Microsoft also provide various services that are charged for. Typically these will be tools and software consumed and built internally by the company which then get spun out into a Business-to-Business commercial offering as well. Amazon Web Services are another example of this, where they built \"cloud tools\" internally to more easily setup and manage web servers, databases, messaging (email, push notifications), and many, many more things. This originally started as an internal tool for their engineers but they realized there was commercial potential and now it's extremely popular among a segment of software companies.\n\n*I don't recall the actual numbers off-hand, and I'm too lazy to look them up right now.",
"So none of the responses so far are accurate so I'll just point out the obvious: they aren't. Specifically, they aren't making money from consumers of free services. They make money in other ways. For example, Google makes maps free to use for consumers, but developers must pay to use the apps in an application. Oracle makes several Java applications free to use, but charge businesses for enterprise editions of software. Microsoft has various campaigns of free services and software (such as their OS), but charge businesses licences to use them. \n\nIn other words, companies make money from offering free services to consumers by charging other businesses for services that users use. For example, by Oracle handing Java out, this ensures that many consumers will use Java and companies will now make Java applications. Licensing is usually the largest income for large software companies like Microsoft. "
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2qsh89 | how comes elementary, middle, and high school is so meaningless and easy, but college is so much pressure and everything coming down on you at once | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/2qsh89/eli5_how_comes_elementary_middle_and_high_school/ | {
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"In today's marketplace it can be very tough to get a good paying job without a college degree. In fact, you can even look t it in the current state of the economy that the degree won't even guarantee you a job anymore. What it is good for is to guarantee you an INTERVIEW. "
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akoktk | why is it that when someone needs to sneeze but can’t quite get it out, looking at a bright light helps? | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/akoktk/eli5_why_is_it_that_when_someone_needs_to_sneeze/ | {
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"It’s the photic sneeze effect. A large percentage of people have a gene that causes them to sneeze when they look at the sun.",
"The trigeminal nerve (triggers a sneeze) runs close to the optic nerve. Flooding the optic nerve suddenly (with light) can cause the trigeminal nerve to trigger.",
"There's a nerve that runs from your nose to your brain called the trigeminal nerve. That nerve is located near the optic nerve. When that nerve gets tickled, you sneeze. That nerve is generally tickled by detecting stuff in your nose.\n\nA decent portion of the population is born with a birth defect that causes the protective sheath of the trigeminal nerve to be weakened. That weakened sheath can allow the trigeminal nerve to be tickled by a strong enough signal being transmitted by the nearby optic nerve. \n\nWhen you look at a sudden bright light, the optic nerve transmits a strong signal to the brain. This signal is strong enough that it can tickle the trigeminal nerve through its weakened sheath. And you sneeze. \n\nImagine two wires next to each other, and one of them has a bunch of holes in the plastic coating. Sometimes when you turn on one lamp, the other might flash on for a moment. ",
"I experience that as well, and was surprised to learn not everyone has that reaction. Some of my siblings are aware of it, so I guess heredity is a factor. I've heard it called **ADCHOO**—Autosomal Dominant Compelling Helio-Ophthalmic Outburst, or 'sun sneezing'. Sometimes just walking outside on a sunny day will trigger a sneeze.",
"This sounds kinda wierd but when i get a sneeze stuck i rub the top of my nose like im rubbing a clit and never lose a sneeze... The light trick sounds interesting tho"
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25s5kq | what should i do in a brawl? | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/25s5kq/eli5what_should_i_do_in_a_brawl/ | {
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"Definitely curl up in the fetal position.",
"[Karate chop] (_URL_0_)",
"If you have to ask, Run Away.",
"Attack weak spots like: balls, throat, eyes. If you end on the ground protect your head and attack knees, balls. If given the upper hand assume more people are coming and deliver as much damage as possible in the shortest amount of time possible. \n\nAbove all, try to avoid situations like this. They can easily end with severe injury or death. However, if ever in such a pinch, other people getting severely hurt is always preferable to getting hurt yourself. ",
"Stop, drop and roll.",
"A lot of fighting just comes down to sheer willingness to hit and be hit. Saying \"if you're in a fight do this\" doesn't really work. An aggressor has the advantage typically because they're already hyped up to do damage while the defender is still thinking \"buh what should I do now?\"\n\nTake a self defence class. ideally one which a) involves physical sparring and b)emphasises that the first course of action if possible should be running away.\n",
"If you need to fight defend yourself do it however you can. Fight as dirty as you need to because it could be the difference between life and death and no one is going to say it was a good thing you didn't fight dirty at your funeral.\n\nThe other thing you should do is not go down, do everything you can to keep standing and protect your head. Brain damage is permanent so protect it at all costs. If you go down protect you head however you can.",
"Always carry pocketsand."
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3pyscu | why does fish smell so much more than other kinds of meat? | Why is that classic "fishy odor" so sharp and so prone to lingering when compared to beef, chicken, etc? | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/3pyscu/eli5_why_does_fish_smell_so_much_more_than_other/ | {
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"They live in a completely different environment, for one.\n\nThey are very much further divergent in common ancestry than, say cows, pigs, and ourselves. Notice that poultry has a stronger and very different scent from mammalian meat products, but much less pervasive than fish. Closer common ancestry.\n\nThird, they have diets of other marine life, and at the bottom of the food chain are grubby little nasties, and plankton and shit. Literal feces. Cattle are herbivores, and eat deliciously fragrant land dwelling plants.\n\nLastly, having a strongly scented meat could be beneficial to the survival of the species of fish. If a predator bites a chunk out of one fish, the scent will permeate the water, drawing other predators to that location, potentially drawing the attention away from the rest of the school.",
"Not only Fish, but most sea creatures smell when they are taking out of the water. Sea water is rich in salt water, and in order for these animals to maintain fluidity in their cells they have to fill their cells with amino acids and amines(type of ammonia), this is done so their bodies are happy chilling in the ocean. Now their cells are filled with trimethylamine oxide (TMAO), thats the stuff that allows them to live in salty water. But when they are not living in the ocean and are on land this TMAO changes to TMA(trimethylamine), fish enzymes and bacteria create the change. Its just a chemical reaction that happens to the fish. But when this happens, its starts to smell. TMA gives off that odour you're thinking about. \n",
"Fish doesn't stay fresh as long. \"Fresh\" means \"not too much chemical damage.\"\n\nOne big reason is that they're not warm-blooded. When you chill a chicken or beef carcass the low temperature shuts down the enzymes in the meat and that greatly slows-down chemical damage.\n\nGo a step further and frozen meat will stay fresh (except for the icing damage) for about a year as long as it's kept safe from oxygen. \n\nBut a refrigerated fish is a different story. Cod for example can spend their entire lives below 50F and be happy. A refrigerator isn't cold enough to stop their metabolic enzymes, so fish spoils much faster than warm-blooded meat.\n\nProtein turns into free amino acids, which have strong cheesy/fishy/yeasty scents and flavors that aren't necessarily bad, but which are definitely acquired tastes. Vegemite is a perfect example of a food with a lot of free aminos in it. Soy sauce is another one. Cheese has some. Those products are all slightly decomposed.\n\nFurther decomposition, especially once the wrong kind of bacteria are involved, makes other small amines that are *really* gross. (One literally has the nickname [putrescine](_URL_0_)).\n\nSpoil meat will produce similar smells, but it takes longer. Meat also contains more and different kinds of fat. When fats spoil they go stale-bitter-sour, and that is a big part of the difference in smell.\n\nIn short: fish is fishy because it's already starting to go bad. Fresh fish does have an odor, but it's very mild and for lack of better terms more buttery, salty, and maybe earthy depending on variety. Not sharp like amines.\n\nP.S.\n\nMost of these decomposition products are not a food-safety risk themselves, but they do serve as natural warning that there may be toxic bacteria and fungi present. Gross food might not hurt you, but food that tastes fine can."
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5j248m | if you look at the 70s and 80s, their culture (music, clothes, etc.) was so different from each other. why does 2000s and 2010s culture seem almost the same? | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/5j248m/eli5_if_you_look_at_the_70s_and_80s_their_culture/ | {
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"You remember the transition because it was recent. The evolution of fashion in 60's and 70's is thought of in punctuated snap shots because of how long ago it was.",
"Does it really, though? One example I can think of is clothing - think of the loose, baggy styles of the early 2000s compared with the tight, form fitting trends of today. \n\nPerhaps another example would be the rise of the hipster. Had you even heard of the term prior to 2010 or so? I certainly hadn't. ",
"Well in accordance to common art philosophies perpetuated by people like David foster Wallace and Danto, is that we are beyond the realm of history meaning that we've surpassed a traceable linear history that shows progression but no we live in a world that is many different lines of history as we're getting more connected with the furthest corner of the world. We now instead of a visible progression (I mean it's always been this way) have a progression built on what we've learned before and what we have now, an oscillation of modern postmodern tendencies. We are progressing but differently ",
"Our clothing today is stylish, but its primarily functional, we have stretchy fabrics that keep in heat, we can get clothing to do easier what we couldnt get it to do before. Thats a little part of my cltohing fashion is plateauing. With music, part of it is technology, the new music tech in the 60s 70s and 80s was radically different, and fairly easy to use, music laregly followed the new possibilites (synths, samples, thigs like effects pedals). Also, back then, people were more into defining themselves in contrast to former generations. Now a days, culture has accumulated, and we have a lot of hip history to draw upon, so our priorities have changed along with this fact. Think, we got electric intsruments somewhere in the 30s or so, rock beats in the late 50s, all that new RnB n Soul n Funk sounds in the 70s, eventually, there werent any obvious next new directions, at least that would sweep the public consciousness. We see more subtle combinations of things from the last 40 years now, as opposed to \"new\" stuff, and this is what the people want these days. ",
"It's probably down to social media and the internet in general leading to trends becoming global almost instantly. What may have been trendy in the U.S. in '66 may not have hit Europe until a year or two later. Also mainstream 80's subculture may not have manifested in the former soviet block until the late 80's early 90's, whereas these days fads spread almost instantly particularly among young people, so in my old person opinion it's globalization and interwebs.",
"We went from alternative rock and flannel shirts to wubwubwub and hats with price tags still attached in a 10 years span. It's a pretty rad change if you ask me",
"Partly because we haven't turned 2000s and 2010s into easily digestible stereotypes yet. \n\nBut yes I agree with you. I loved through 80s, 90s, 00s, and 10s and it feels like things slowed down in the 2000s comparatively. \n\nObviously there has been lots of change though.",
"Because for the last 15 years all modern American pop music has been produced by two guys. ",
"The internet is homogenizing societies and making fads come and go so fast that they never develop into trends ",
"It is a matter of memory and detachment. You see, when the decades are not over, you cannot see them as how they are different from the previous one. I remember thinking the same in the 2000's and the 90's back then and about the 90's and the 80s'. \n\nJust get a little bit detach and you will se the obvious differences. Member when everyone thought that Edd Hardy, Ambercrombie and True Religion jeans were cool??? Ohh, I member. Member the RAZR phone and the IPod craze? ",
"You didn't notice the shift because you're 20-ssomething and you were not alive. if you look at yourself in the mirror every day for ten years i bet you wouldn't notice a difference in how you look, one day at a time. but now go on facebook and look at a photo of yourself from 2006, wow, that is a huge change.\n\nyou didn't live in the 70s or 80s so you have a snapshot image in your mind of what 70s was and you don't ever think of the day by day changes and shifts from decade to decade. just my thoughts.",
"The leggings of today are similar to the 90s.\n\nWe no longer use the \"shrug\"- that cardigan that only covers the arms and shoulders.\n\nFedoras? Porkpie hats? Those things go back decades.\n\nMy biggest issue more than fashion is actually the music.",
"Many decade fads of the past were driven by technological shifts. The tech that came out in 2000 didn't influence much in 2010. The 70s\\80s just was huge with transistors and computer tech. Synth, recording and mixing techniques, new textiles, bakelite, plastics, it was huge. Going from the 50s to 60s, and 60s to 70s had similar jumps. Tech doesn't make ripples, it makes shockwaves.\n\nLooking at 2000 to 2010... not much tech influenced culture as in the past. Only thing that comes to mind is the rise of the Hipster and retro kitsch and the crybully.",
"In the 80s, I and my peers generally didn't think we were doing things much differently from the 70s. More like we were emulating them but with different resources. ",
"I've been wondering the same thing.\n\nI remember the 60s, 70s, 80s, each distinctive.\n\nThen the 90s were different, and since then it doesn't seem to change much.\n\nI thought maybe I was just missing something.",
"What we think of as \"70's\" is effectively a distilled selection that defined the decade as being different from the years that came before and after. \n\nBut the music of the 2000's is still recent enough for a lot of it to be played at house parties, on the radio, etc and the content is fresh enough to be remembered by everyone - so there's more variety still being exposed, and less \"decade defining\" music that has been distilled down. \n\nAlso, bear in mind that the 70's have both the 60s and 80s to define it and give it context - the decade following the 2000s is only just over halfway through, so we still dont yet know what will \"define\" the 2000s and what will continue to develop and remain popular throughout the following decade. ",
"The 80s introduced cheap labor and textiles to fashion. No such gains between 2000\\2010. All the development is in software tech. Not clothes",
"It's there, they're different. You just don't realize as much because you lived it. Think about yourself today versus yourself in 2006, they seemed somewhat similar (depending on your age). But if you go as an outsider, they're massively different. Look at a TV show from the early 2000's; the girls wore flared jeans and butterfly hair clips, the boys wore baggy pants, they all listened to boy bands on their Razr phones, and they used slang and catchphrases like bling, don't have a cow, and bi-otch. All of that would be outdated and out of style, today, would it not? A good example is Friends. If you watch the early episodes, they were clearly living in the early 90s, and the later seasons were clearly in the 2000's. However, if you watch the whole show, you won't realize that all of a sudden the outfits seem different, because it's gradual.\n\nKeep in mind that our views of the past are flawed as well. Everything didn't shift from flower power and bell bottoms in 1979 to mullets and jazzercise as soon as it became the 80's . Changes like major shifts in fashion, culture, and music are gradual, and things last from one to another, and are adopted overtime. What we think of as iconic symbols of the 90's began in the 80's and lasted into the 2000's. Stuff ebbs and flows. Nothing feels that different one day to another, but after enough days you realize you've aged 10 years."
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3qlrnr | the situation in the south china sea. why doesn't some international body (such as the un) rule who owns what part of the ocean, and what is international waters? | [The whole situation seems messy and dangerous.](_URL_0_). Surely there must be some international law that covers situations like this? | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/3qlrnr/eli5_the_situation_in_the_south_china_sea_why/ | {
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"Because no body of gov tells what sovereign countries what the rules are. Some countries agreed to certain rules between themselves in a treaty. Other countries agree on some rules but not others.",
" > Surely there must be some international law that covers situations like this?\n\nYou mean like the UN convention on the law of the sea upon which the sovereign claims China is challenging are based?\n\nThe reason this is a big deal is precisely because China is seeking to overturn the rules based nature of management of ocean resources. The US sending ships within its claims is a routine thing the US does when countries attempt to violate freedom of movement in what the UNCLOS calls international waters. \n\nAlso, China's response was actually rather tepid. They didn't even summon the US ambassador for direct talks on the matter. It's likely that Obama told Xi Jinping that he was going to do this during Xi's visit to the US.",
"Is that the same UN in which China and the U.S. both have veto power on the Security Council?",
"Here's the situation in a nutshell:\n\n* Countries can own land and the waters for up to 12 nautical miles from that land.\n* Other ocean further out is \"international waters\" and not owned by anyone\n* China is creating man-made islands out in the ocean so that they can claim it as their land.\n* Having land further out in the ocean allows them to claim more ocean that was previously considered international waters\n* The US thinks they are cheating, so they brought in their military ships into this ocean area which they were legally allowed to be in before\n* China says they are invading their territory. The US says it's not their territory.\n\nThere are no international laws on this because countries creating their own islands is not something that has been done before. Who is right?",
" > Why doesn't some international body (such as the UN) rule who owns what part of the ocean, and what is international waters?\n\nThere are some good answers here already, but I think it's important to realize that international bodies only have as much power over a nation as that nation *allows* them to have.\n\nSay, for example, that the UN makes up some rules about who owns international waters. China then says, \"Nope, fuck you guys, we'll do whatever we want.\"\n\nSo what can the UN do about that? Answer: not very much. Maybe try to impose economic sanctions, but:\n\n1. China is on the UN Security Council, and can unilaterally veto any decisions. \n2. If China were *not* on the Security Council, their economy is so large that it would negatively impact the world economy to try to impose sanctions.\n\nIn short, \"international law\" is more accurately thought of as \"nations who decide to cooperate with each other and call doing so 'law'.\" International \"law\" can only be enforced through:\n\n1. Voluntary cooperation. \n2. Member nations all agreeing to levy economic sanctions against the offender. \n3. Member nations agreeing to go to war against the offender."
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5ry1nd | how come after you recover from a sickness such as the flu or a stomach virus, for a few days your stomach is wonky and doesn't seem to work properly? | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/5ry1nd/eli5_how_come_after_you_recover_from_a_sickness/ | {
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"Your body's natural response is to basically flush everything out.\n\nYou might not know this but your body, when healthy, supports a functioning ecosystem of bacteria in your gut that aid in digestion.\n\nYour body basically says \"I'm not right, kick them all out\". Sort of like a party where a few bad actors get kicked out and the entire thing gets shut down. \n\nHopefully, the stuff that you want in there is still hanging around, and now they need to start rebuilding. In the meantime....you aren't shitting right, lots of weird sounds, shit has been upended. \n\nIt's just your body coming back to equilibrium. There are bacteria living in you that have evolved to live in the environment that your gut produced for millennia. Thankfully, they're right at home, and they're ready to come back as soon as things settle down."
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e4z49g | sleep paralysis demons (for someone who has never experienced sleep paralysis before). | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/e4z49g/eli5_sleep_paralysis_demons_for_someone_who_has/ | {
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"Sleep is not an on/off switch; it doesn't always work perfectly.\n\n\"Sleep paralysis\" is actually completely normal - it would be very bad for someone to be acting out everything in their dreams, so their bodies lock up and stop them from moving while they're asleep. Usually.\n\nThe problem is when part of a person is awake and the rest is not. For some people, this causes sleep-walking (mind asleep, body not). For other people, it causes monsters to come into your room and claw at you while you can't move (body asleep, mind not.)\n\nWhen you're in this half-asleep half-awake state, your real world and dream world mix together like an Augmented Reality horror game. You'll hallucinate sounds that aren't there, you'll sense presences moving around, you might feel things touching you. If your eyes are open, then you'll start seeing some creepy stuff in your room. Since you can't move due to the sleep paralysis, you'll probably freak out, which will cause all of these dream elements to definitely become nightmare elements.\n\nEvery culture has their own distinct version of Bloody Mary, who everyone from that culture swears they've met before. It turns out that Bloody Mary is their subconscious failing to recognize their own reflection in a dusty mirror in the dark and Photoshopping it to a completely different figure. It can be a family member, a stranger, or a monster. They were told to expect a monster, so a monster they get.\n\nI believe the same thing affects sleep paralysis incidents. \"Shadow people\" is a common urban legend, and so most people dream up shadow people when they're paralyzed.\n\nAnd hell, I'm pretty sure alien abductions are the same thing. Aliens are scary."
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2v6h6a | how come microsoft could sell windows for $100 for so long. how come cheaper os's didn't take off? | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/2v6h6a/eli5_how_come_microsoft_could_sell_windows_for/ | {
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"I don't think you understand how much effort goes into creating an operating system. The sheer amount of knowledge and code alone is daunting. That alone keeps most people from starting a business let alone the amount of competition apple and microsoft can bring keeps everyone else out. The only reason Linux and derivatives like ubuntu have developed as free open source alternatives is because they are community driven and free to rebel against the \"system\"",
"1) Windows is the most well known, trusted and reasonably simple OS. \n\n2) People probably grew up with windows as schools back then didn;t usually buy Apple PCs or Apple laptops.\n\n3) Almost every program is guaranteed to work with Windows. There's a chance some apps won't work with Linux or Ubuntu",
"I'll get downvoted to hell by the Linux lovers, but the honest answer is that Windows + MS Office cannot be matched by any open source offering. The reason why Windows is successful is because it is better than Linux.",
"Actually, they don't sell it for $100. That's what you pay if you build your own PC, but PC builders are a minority. If you buy a comupter with Windows pre-installed, you're probably paying about $50 for Windows. On top of that, lots of companies (I'm looking at you, Norton) pay Windows PC makers to pre-install their software, which lowers the price further. Beyond that, people don't buy the thing that's good. They buy the thing they are familiar with. That's why advertising is so successful. And most people are familar with the name Windows.",
"Because $100 for Microsoft Windows is a great deal. ",
"well i can tell you why it there wasn't an alternative for me. I think my first expirience with Linux was around 2004/2005 and to be honest it was a great time for using windows. First there was windows 95, 98, than windows me and after that windows xp. And i enjoyed every single one of those to some degree. Even though i have to admit ME and XP mostly got me by the improved look. You can't imagine how much a teenage boy enjoyed it when they removed the grey block behind the icon-texts on the screen, it allowed me to see more of the beautiful girls i had as wallpapers! So basically letting me see more boobs was the most important feature for me back than :D and if i'm completely honest not that much did change. \n\n\nAround that time i tried Suse linux, it had an installer and a great look. But than again there was problem number one, it had 3 or 4 cds (i can't remember exactly) and at a time when everyone around me had crappy internet, it was impossible for me to download without my parents cutting my head off after looking at the phone bill. Finally my father got it from an colleague, who was a big linux fan and an IT engineer, probably one of the view people at the time who had good internet and used linux. \n\n\nBut after i was finally able to get it, it was just as easy to install and a easy to use. Even though most people told me linux is hard to use, the GNOME interface was just wonderful. It really was as easy to use as Windows and maybe even looked a bit better at the time.\n\n\nBut than i ran into the first big problem, flash player support... back than playing flash games was something me and my friends did a lot and we just started discovering the internet. You can't imagine how important flash was for me! After a while i flash to run, but my \"weak\" pc wasn't able to make it a good experience. \nIn addition to that it took lots of effort to get some hardware to work, that made playing other games difficult (if there even was a linux version). Even having a different Windows version back than was kind of bad. We used to do LAN Parties, because playing online together was kinda impossible, and there was always the guy who didn't get his network card to work or had some driver problems. Linux just made me that guy, which i didn't enjoy at all.\nAnd the biggest reason i stopped using linux shortly after i got it was open office. Back then everyone only had Microsoft office and the one time i tried to do my homework with open office something horrible happened. The wonderful document i made on my Linux pc didn't work with the schools windows! And it turns out that my homework doesn't work because i used Linux to do it, is just as bad as an excuse as my dog ate it. \n\n\nThere may have been solutions to those problems, but i just used windows and i was rather young and inexperienced (but i had more pc knowledge than my parents). So the lack of smart Linux users that could help me out was another big problem.\n\n\nNow to the modern world, i talked about using Linux in a bigger tech company at a conference with some important people. And they mostly mentioned two things why they won't use Linux. The first one is support, a big company can't have software problems and if there are any they need to have a great support to solve those problems fast. And you don't have that with free Linux versions, so you'd need to take one of the paid business versions that offer you some kind of security and support. The second reason was still compatibility, many tools those companies use just aren't for Linux and you can't be sure that a new piece of hardware comes with Linux support (And those companies don't talk about equipment that costs a view hundred bucks, some of the measurements equipment is really expensive and makes cars look cheap). So even today Windows is the standard that most companies use and using Linux still causes compatibility issues, for not very common hardware and software. \n\n\nBut than again i can only recommend Linux to the average user nowadays, it's wonderful, easy to use and i'll try to smuggle it on my grandfathers pc in the near future. He probably won't notice the difference, i just have to make sure solitaire is still there. \n\n\nTL;DR Linux had and still has big compatibility issues.",
"Given how difficult it is to make an operating system $100 is a very generous price.\n\nThere are cheaper/free operating systems out there but they are generally not used for pc's.\n\nWindows has become the standard for pc's and most people cater to that. Most games only come out with a windows version, most commercial software is designed primarily for windows. Also if you computer is not working, your tech-savy cousin know windows too since he uses it as well.\n\nThat being said other operating systems, especially linux, are widely popular on other platforms such as servers and mobile phones. for instance android is based on linux.",
"One reason Microsoft continues to dominate is that there are so many companies already running Microsoft and who have invested in programs which run on Microsoft. Microsoft became the dominant company early and has built on that user base for many years.\n\n1) The cost of changing OS's is prohibitive for most companies.\n\n2) The companies licensing agreements make changing to another O.S. difficult.\n\n3) The pervasiveness of Microsoft means that if you want to get a job doing anything which involves computers, familiarity with Microsoft is almost a requirement. So you probably use Microsoft at home even if you like some other O.S.\n\n4) Microsoft Office is a well integrated suite of programs which has been well received by businesses. There are other such programs available and conversion programs, but Microsoft is at the top of the usage chart. Of course, Microsoft Office runs on Microsoft operating system.",
"Market share and compatibility. The Microsoft world had become so ingrained after Windows 3.1/95/98 made the Windows world ubiquitous. By the time XP was released, compatibility for most consumer hardware was finally coming to a standardized position in alternate operating systems (such as Linux), but the process of installation was still fairly complex -- which led to driving the Windows adaptation rate even higher. Add to this fact, that game developers still typically treat Linux and Mac as a secondary project (if they pay attention to the platforms at all), and you find a huge swath of the consumer base who has zero desire for a platform that isn't Windows.\n\nThat also can't discount the footprint in the Enterprise, education, and corporate worlds that Microsoft has with Windows/Office/Exchange/MSSQL/etc.\n\nHardware compatibility, and ease of use wise, Linux is only just now coming close to what Windows can boast, but developers still haven't made the move (and won't as long as Microsoft continues to hold the marketshare). Apple on the other hand maintains an entirely independent ecosystem -- hardware and all -- and largely avoids competing with Microsoft on the same ground. As such, Apple has no expectations of becoming the ubiquitous OS on desktops the way Microsoft has -- this is evidenced by the fact that their underlying operating system is just as compatible and adaptable as Windows 7/8 currently is (as proven by Hackintosh fanatics), yet they have never even hinted at the possibility of a general consumer hardware release.\n\nIf Valve had struck when the iron was hot, 1.5 years ago, I think that the outlook for Linux becoming the de facto PC gaming platform would be vastly different than it is at this moment. Until some kind of game changer like that comes along, that heavily compels the industry to change the status quo, we'll continue to see a Microsoft dominated desktop.",
"Microsoft didn't sell it to you as the end user in the vast majority of cases. they sold it to computer manufacturers. The Manufacturers get volume discounts via OEM liscensing. They then get to sell a product that is compatible with a huge amount of hardware and software.\n\nEven Apple with their massive market might have compatibility issues. If you just want to go on failbook and reddit as well as watch a movie and write your blog then an Apple is an excellent (if a little over powered) machine. Likewise if you use all those high end media creation programs like Photoshop and Dreamweaver style things. Apples are awesome for that too. What you can't do most of the time is see an advert for a new AAA game, go out and buy it and play right out of the box. You either have to mess about with Bootcamp or Parallels to make it work like Windows or you have to hope they made a Mac OS version of the game. \n\nNow imagine all those problems but without Apples market share and ability to influence software manufacturers. Your new computer OS might be a wonderful thing that is easy and intuitive to use but unless there is software to run on it then you have nothing. ",
"A lot of people have been skipping many critical issues. While creating an operating system is a very ambitious project, and the investment would be incredibly high, I do not believe that is the main issue. In fact, I don't even believe it is a very big one. I'm sure there are countless companies that would be happy to pay the price to develop a new kernel, shell, and GUI. Provided you could guarantee user adoption and manufacturer support.\n\nThere are individuals who have created operating systems on their own, yes they are very limited, but it's very doable. As an example, check out [Visopsys](_URL_2_), and the well known [Linus Torvalds](_URL_1_), who wrote the original Linux kernel (and imported the bash shell).\n\nThe real problems arise **after** you have created the operating system. In order to create an OS, you will inherently need support for at least one CPU architecture, in today's environment, the obvious choice would be [x86-64](_URL_0_). After you have your kernel created, you need a shell, and also a GUI. Lets just assume all of this is done.\n\nNow, lets say Joe Shmoe goes and buys a computer. He gets the latest processor, motherboard, video card, sound card, and SSD. Since you are a large company, with good programmers behind your project, you have kept your kernel up-to-date. It supports all of the latest CPU features, and Joe's computer is crazy fast on your OS. His SSD is also supported out-of-the-box, since this is easy to implement.\n\nHowever, Joe has no sound. The built in Ethernet on his motherboard doesn't work, and neither does the card reader that came on the front of his case. And while you have included a basic Video Driver, his Geforce GTX 9996 Extreme Edition HD x2 lags while playing even the most simple games. This is because you don't have driver support for the motherboard, card reader, sound card, or video card. \n\nNow, you could contact Nvidia and Creative Labs, and tell them that you need support, but why should they shell out $10,000 to create a driver for your operating system? Lets forget the issue that none of their developers have any experience with your operating system or development environment. You don't have any deals with Dell to sell a million copies of your operating system paired with their hardware, you don't have wide support for other devices, and there is very little demand for your product. \n\nBasically, you can't get people to use your operating system because of a lack of manufacturer support, and you can't get manufacturer support, because of a lack of people using your operating system.\n\nAdd the fact that you cannot support proprietary APIs like Microsoft DirectX (no support for new games), you don't have the industry standard office suite Microsoft office (lack of interest from professionals), a lack of audio and video manufacturer support (no video or music editing for hipsters), and all you are left with is an operating system that at best, might reach the popularity of Linux (which has less than 1.5% of the Desktop market). \n\nI doubt you could even reach that percentage, since everyone who is well established in the field, specializes in development environments and APIs that you don't support. Effectively, you would be asking developers to learn an entire new environment, with the promise of opening them up to an additional 1% of the market. It's not worth it for them, or for you. This means that companies like Adobe aren't going to bother creating a version of Flash for your operating system, so no YouTube. There are countless little programs that daily life on a computer requires, and all of these would need to be ported over to your operating system in order to perform things that are taken for granted on Windows.\n\nThe operating system itself plays an important role, but it relies heavily on the support of hundreds of manufacturers, tens of thousands of developers familiar with their environment, and established software (Microsoft office, Adobe Photoshop, Chrome), and the use of APIs that developers are already familiar with, and are supported by video card manufacturers, such as DirectX. It's not just the windows driver that is needed in this case, but hardware and software support on the part of the video card as well ([pixel shader](_URL_3_) is a good example).\n\n*Edit: I just remembered that YouTube is now HTML5 based, but the sentiment remains. While a good high quality browser ported to your system would support HTML5, there would still be many similar issues. I should mention that Netflix is moving away from Microsoft SilverLight in support of HTML5 as well. Open standards are taking the lead in online video streaming right now, which helps, but there is a long way to go. And lets face it, porn plays a major role as well, which is still dominated by Flash and SilverLight. I have even noticed a few impressive games using OpenGL, but it will most likely never reach the popularity envisioned for it in the 90s. New online office suits are also very impressive, and show a lot of potential, especially with Word, but other formats are still lacking in support (such as Powerpoint). These may seem trivial, but if you rely on any of them on a daily basis, then even one makes all the difference.*\n\n*Edit2: My first gold! Thank you very much mysterious stranger, hopefully I'll see you out in the wasteland!*",
"100$ IS cheap for operating system especialy for so well flushed out like windows.",
"I am convinced Windows dominated the market for so long because a) it was easy to use, and b) it had a reputation of being a serious OS 'for adults' (unlike Apple, which had its foothold in schools since the early 80s iirc). \n\nApple also used Token Ring networking, which 80s kids will remember as the reason why if one computer went down in the lab, all of them went down. This was not viable for large-scale businesses, but Microsoft used a different method (was it TCP/IP?) that made networks much more stable and made it the de facto corporate OS.\n\nAs a result people who had the money to buy a computer tended to gravitate toward what they were familiar with. Apple was a kid's OS for a long time and had a bad rep because of Token Ring.",
"Late to the show, but you must consider that an operating system is a loose connection of parts bound together by one or several APIs. \n\nYou have the kernel. In GNU/Linux, *Linux* is the kernel. That is all it is. A kernel is a part of the OS that schedule processes, allocates memory, manages interrupts, and so on. A user-space program makes *requests* of a kernel via system calls. An OS can *just* be a kernel, though it would not be very friendly to use.\n\nThen you have the toolchain. This is the compiler, debugger, linker, ELF libraries. These tools allow you to *compile* the kernel, and also other parts of the OS.\n\nThen you have system libraries. In GNU/Linux, this would be things like glibc, which is a large amount of system based library functions that do *useful* stuff that other programs might need.\n\nThen you have device drivers.\n\nAnd so on.\n\nSo an OS is not one big indivisible blob. It is many parts. I mean you can have GNU/Linux with a *realtime* kernel. Or you can run GNU (what most people think of as Linux) with a hurd kernel. Removing Linux from the GNU OS altogether.\n\nEdit: All the things on top of the above are just user-space programs. In GNU/Linux anyway. GNOME is a graphical environment. Don't like it? Install a different one like KDE. And so on. Libreoffice needs both the underlying graphical APIs and the glibc APIs to function (plus a bunch of others that goes beyond the scope of a ELI5 answer). But you can (and servers do) run OSs without any graphical environment. It is an OS, you just can run any UIs on it.",
"What options have we had? Windows, Apple, Unix, Linux have been the major OS's for the past +20 years. There have been others but, these 4 are the most successful. Also, Android, very successful, based off Linux.\n\nMicrosoft focused on the x86 platform developed by IBM, a business oriented company with a long history.\n\nApple had depended upon proprietary, expensive hardware, popular in the early gaming community, now based off FreeBSD, a nix. It has always been popular in the creative areas of business such as video production, arts, math & science. \n\nUnix is an old OS, mostly commandline driven, not really suited for day to day end users who have little knowledge or need of knowledge of how a computer works. Mostly used as servers, science and mathematics, production environments. \n\nLinux, started in '91, is community driven, based off Unix. It has taken 20 years for Linux to reach the user friendliness that is has today. And still if there is a problem, it takes someone with certain skills to work with it. New hardware support lags since the community must get the hardware and get proprietary information from the hardware producers in order to develop drivers. \n\n\nOut of these 4 OS's Microsoft won out as the leader because it made an OS simple enough for even computer illiterates to use, based on cheaper hardware. Back in the day the difference between buying an Apple or a PC with the same capabilities could be $1,000. \nIt's not hard to understand why business sided with Windows on costs alone. ",
"Microsoft managed to get Windows entrenched as the de-facto standard operating system for many years by makimg deals with manufacturers to include it on their computers. A computer isn't very useful without an OS, Apple chose to keep their OS tied to their hardware (if you want it you need to also buy the computer from them), and the Linux alternatives didn't have a very good graphical user interface and were considered difficult to use for your average consumer. So Microsoft comes in, convinces manufacturers to ship Windows with their computers, and that's what people get used to seeing and using. They make a version available for sale to build-it-yourselfers but they are a tiny minority compared to the big companies buying tens of thousands of Windows licenses.\n\nMicrosoft did masterfully well at getting Windows to be damn near everywhere. They pushed hard to have it on workstations for the office as well as computers for the home user. They made an OS with the potential to run on anything - they released information to all the manufacturers for how to build drivers to make Windows run on their hardware, and information to developers for how to make their software run on Windows. They didn't try to control everything from end to end like apple did, and they had a much more mature graphical user interface compared to other alternatives.\n\nEventually everybody and their brother was used to Windows, their work and home computers ran it, all their favourite programs ran on it (and were almost exclusively made for just windows) and they were familiar and comfortable with it. Developers making new programs would make them for Windows because they had the largest market share and hardware manufacturers would make drivers for windows for the same reason. This made it harder and harder for \"alternative\" operating systems to get a foot-hold.\n\n**What does this all have to do with their ability to charge a high price?** Familiarity. People don't want to re-learn how to use a computer just to save a few bucks, especially if it means that their computer works differently than the one at work or the ones their friends have. If they can't share programs or even files with their friends or bring work home to work on. Back in the days before the internet people carried programs and files on diskettes, and a diskette formatted for windows wouldn't work in a Mac (or often on Linux). Files written in MS Word wouldn't be compatible with the word processors on Linux or Mac. \n\nSo most people who needed to buy an operating system were willing to pay the high price for the one that they knew could do all of the things they needed it to do at home and at work, that was familiar, that allowed them to transfer files and programs between other computers they used and that would actually run on the computer they were buying it for. \n\n**TL;DR:** Sometimes the price of something is the least important consideration.",
"The big thing, aside from the proliferition in the business world, was that microsoft was a software company instead of a hardware company. On top of that they got a head start by being the software that IBM initialy used, and IBM was who the government turned to for computers. This gave MS the first crack at most customers. On top of that when pentium patent ran out and athlon cloned it from IBM, it meant that PCs that could be produced more cheaply were based on the architecture that MS Dos had been programmed for. In order to get the Mac windows, you had to buy a Mac(like how you had to get a blackberry for BBM) , and although the price was not as inflated as what we see now, the brand wasn't well known. The pentium and athlon chip sets were what people knew worked, and only MS-dos worked on those chips at the time.\n\nAs to Linux, it's interface was designed by programmers, for programmers, which is great if you don't mind learning to make your own desktop environment, and tweaking the lines of code to suit your needs. If you had specific needs this was an advantage, but you had to know how to take that advantage, few people do. It wasn't until distrobutions like Ubuntu that anyone really focused on making an intuitive user interface rather than a streamlined interface for linux.",
"A commercial OS must be pre-installed on computers bought in large volumes to have a chance... A chance at adoption. If the coolest, slickest, stablest, most compatible OS was suddenly released - ran perfectly on all consumer hardware (Apple and white-box whatevers) - and ran all applications from all OSs equally as well as the OSs the apps were natively written for... It would still die if not pre-installed on a LOT of machines. In my history with computers the only OS that sounds like this _sort of_ is BeOS. Be's only hope at long term success was getting bought by Apple to become OSX. It did not. It died. \n\nOnce the OS has the adoption and acceptance associated with coming LOTS of consumer hardware then the OS maker can charge a fair chunk of change to anyone that doesn't have the OS but wants to join the cool club. But if the OS _only_ runs on one vendor's hardware then that vendor has less motivation to charge a bunch because it looks like lock-in and skips to positive publicity of giving away the OS upgrades etc. \n\nWindows is unusual in that it is a commercial OS that runs on a wide variety of hardware platforms. Not unique, but in the niche of desktop, granny friendly OS it is unusual. BeOS tried to be that too... And so did OS/2... Windows was pre-installed more and won. So they can still charge a premium to join their cool-club for those not also buying hardware at the same time. ",
"Because you can get it for free from webs like piratebay(which most of the people from the 2º and 3º world do),and because people in the 1º world can afford to pay for it,so most of the people ends up using windows.",
"There are two related concepts in economics that explain this: *Network Effects* and *First Mover Advantage*. Networking effects describes how the value of a product is also dependent on how many other people use it. So things like Facebook and World of Warcraft are valuable because other people use these things; if you are the only person playing WoW, it's not nearly as fun. First Mover Advantage describes how the person first to the market usually gets to set the rules. So Microsoft was the first to monetize and tap into the home PC Operating System market (first mover advantage) and this creates a Network Effect as more and more people adapt to using Microsoft Windows.",
"Windows is very manageable and that is important for big companies. you can control or lock down a lot of things in the windows os from a centralized server. Same with IE, btw. ",
"There are multiple reasons for this:\n\n* Microsoft products historically had very weak DRM (if at all). Students could grab a copy and install it on their computers without great difficulty. Once these students were in positions to decide about operating systems for their companies, they decided on—you guessed it—Windows.\n* Microsoft Windows is one of the few operating systems that doesn't implement POSIX, the standard for operating systems. Yes, there is a compatibility layer but it has been carefully designed to be absolutely unusable; for instance, you can't make GUI applications with the POSIX layer. This makes it very hard to get Windows software to run on other operating systems, making it hard for people to change operating systems.\n* Microsoft systematically bribed people in the former USSR so they bought Microsoft products when the companies there introduced their first computers.\n* Microsoft has contracts with PC vendors that prohibits them from selling their computers with other operating systems. In exchange, the vendors get a discount on Windows. Since 95% of the customers want to have Windows, it would be suicide to get rid of the discount just to sell something without Windows to 5% of the customers.\n* People are used to Windows and in their mind it's free with every computer they buy. Why do extra effort to install a different OS with less available software if Windows is there already?\n* There is a lot more software for Windows than for other systems. Why use an operating system where your important business software doesn't work?",
"There's a lot long, technical answers in here, but in the end it's very simple, Microsoft cornered the market early and now have a monopoly on PC OS's. ",
"Because despite what Linux and Mac fanboys say, Windows is fucking amazing.",
"Anyone remember BeOs ? Sad....it was the batmobile of OSes ",
"I feel like I should weigh in here, not because I'm some sort of expert, but as a consumer who has grown up using almost every one of the 'main' operating systems (commercial or otherwise). Apple DOS - OSX, Almost every variant of MS, PC, and IBM DOS, PS based GUI's: OS/2 Warp, MS Windows (2.0 through 10preview), Various KDE and GNOME Linux distros. I know that a lot of people will disagree/argue, I feel like MS Windows made it possible for normal people to use computers. While each version had it's own set of problems, realisticly, when you paid that $100, you knew you were going to open up the box, and walk through a fairly straight forward installation process, and when you booted into the OS, you were going to be able to enjoy a fairly simple, somewhat reliable user experience. Again, to be COMPLETELY pragmatic.. A healthy computer with a fresh installation of Windows will work GREAT, for a very long time. The \"problems\" that have tarnished Windows reputation over the years are largely related to poorly written, 3rd party software, user installed malware, adware, and viruses.. Even down to the driver support issues that came about post XP.. \"realisticly\", these too are user created problems. People didn't check with brother and HP to see if there were Windows Vista drivers available for their 5 year old Inkjet printers and they got salty when they installed Vista and nothing worked. \n\nThe reason this is a factor in why cheaper OS's didn't take off, in my opinion, other OS's were difficult to obtain, install, and use.. let alone find widely compatible software for. I work in a medium enterprise environment, it's 2015, and Open Office is still, NOT a viable replacement for MS Office, nor is Google Docs.. Nor is GIMP a realistic replacement for Photoshop. \n\nIn the past, Apple OS thoughted slim, sleek (and often, not very flexible or powerful) apps and utilites, making it a great choice for a school, but not very good for an enterprize customer who needed advanced networking support. At the same time, PC based operating systems offered very advanced apps and utils, but they were not polished very well and were very difficult to operate due to their massive functionality. So over the past 10 years, I've whitnessed the PC world refine their OS and app space to try to mimmic Apple, and I've also seen the Apple world start to develop more and more higher end applications with the same functionality of their PC based counterpart. \n\nWhat's ultimately happening is, developers are realizing that it's much easier to develop powerful tools on a Unix based OS than it is for an app to try to navigate Microsoft's convoluted security layers etc. \n\nI don't know where I'm going with this, so.. I just realized, I forgot to take my medication today. Gotta run.",
"How many people that use Windows realized that they paid for it? For most, it simply comes with the computer. The price, as far as most people are concerned, was $0. Plus, Windows is what their computer at work had - so they already knew how to use it - why learn something new?",
"Linux has been doing VERY well, and it is free. Not just free as far as money, but free in the philosophical sense too."
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7ez3v2 | how do lungs work? | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/7ez3v2/eli5_how_do_lungs_work/ | {
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"A lot of it is their surface area. They also have a huge amount of elasticity. Finally there are amazing chemicals which coat the surface of the cells in the alveoli.\n\nStart with the nose and mouth. They allow air into the bronchi. It crosses the eating tube and an amazing valve keeps things sorted out mostly.The bronchi branch into bronchioles which branch more and more. When you see bronchi you can just say air tube. The tubes get smaller and smaller. Finally they end in little sacs called alveoli which have the tremendous surface area and the fantastic chemicals which allow them to stay open. Gases diffuse across the membranes of the alveoli and into the blood stream. Carbon dioxide also diffuses across the other way due to their being more in the blood than the atmosphere.\n\nMuscles expand the chest which means air moves into the lungs. Then the chest contracts so air moves out. The fresh air in the alveoli means gas diffusion takes place. Oxygen moves into the blood. Carbon dioxide leaves.\n\nSometimes the alveoli fill with fluid and you have pneumonia. Sometimes air or fluid gets between the lungs and the chest wall. This is serious. Sometimes the flow of blood and the amount of air changes and you have a mismatch between the right amount and what is happening. ",
"First of all, you can see your lungs as two balloons. If you try to make the balloon bigger by pulling its walls, air naturally flows in. If you release the walls, the balloon collapses and expels air outside (Thanks to the negative pressure in your pleural cavity, lungs never actually collapse and are held to a residual volume). When releasing air, if you tighten the neck of the balloon it produces a high pitched sound (exactly what happens when you speak ; air flows in your larynx and makes your vocal folds vibrate at different fequencies depending on how tight you clench them).\n\nThe analogy with balloons stops here, I don't have an ELI5 style analogy for what comes next.\n\nWhen the air is inside the lungs, the partial pressure of gases is roughly equal to what it is outside (air gets wet inside the trachea). The interesting thing here is that your lungs (most precisely the alveoli) are full of capillar blood vessels with a very thin membrane that allows gases to go through. In the blood contained in these vessels, the partial pressure of O2 is slightly lower than its outside-of-your-body counterpart, which allows oxygen to flow toward your blood, while the C02 pressure in your blood is higher than outside, allowing C02 to flow toward your lungs and therefore out. The gas exchange is made passively just by gradient of concentration. This is basically how you breath at lung level.\n\nYour lungs, beside vocalisation and breathing, also have other functions such as regulating your body temperature and the pH of your blood."
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6po2wp | why do americans think the usa is the best nation on earth when people from my country don't say this about our homeland? how did it develop to be socially acceptable to say this? | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/6po2wp/eli5_why_do_americans_think_the_usa_is_the_best/ | {
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"We are told this over and over from an incredibly young age. Americans are conditioned to believe that we are the greatest, and people would risk their lives to live here, so we “appreciate” our homeland. Most people who have spent a lot of time in other countries know that it isn’t the greatest place in the world, but a lot of people are just overly patriotic. ",
"The USA was a revolutionary country, created with an entirely new form of government in response to a belief that the European model (the British Empire specifically) was unfair. So this pride started early.\n\nWinning World War II contributed greatly to our national pride, and right after the war, as the *only* non-devastated great industrial power, the USA was the clear leader of the world economy. That boosted our ego too, until the other countries rebuilt.",
"Most nations are a people who have been in a land for a very long time. America is a nation of people who paid a high cost to leave their homelands and the decedents of said people. Such a people are likely to believe America is better than other nations, if for no other reason than so they/their forefathers don't seem foolish for accepting the costs to move there. \n\nFurther, because America doesn't have many people who have lived here a long time, one of the ways America adapted to allow a very diverse group of people to live together, was to channel lots of pride toward American uniqueness. In other words, [many Americans lost much of their original heritage](_URL_0_) to assimilate, but trading their heritage for being part of the \"best nation on earth\" makes the loss seems more acceptable. ",
"The US has an enormous population, with varying socioeconomic status and culture. \n \nThroughout history, this is really too many people to naturally stay as a single country. Rural people in Mississippi are as close to a New Yorker working on Wall Street as they are to an English person in culture. \n \nTherefore to keep the country together, patriotism is taught from a very young age. By teaching people they are the luckiest, from the greatest nation on earth, they then form as 1 to support the national cause. \n \nIt is easy as a foreigner to make fun of US exceptionalism and patriotism. But without it, the country would likely degenerate into another civil war and break up. \n \nOther large population countries have their own way of keeping the country together. China monitors opposition politics, and shuts it down quickly (as well as benefiting from the economic miracle, it's tough to be in opposition when everyone is getting rich from the status quo). \n \nIndia has a patriotism very similar to the US. Try saying something negative about India to an Indian person(why do you treat lower caste people poorly). Then say something negative about the UK (why do upper class people get benefits beyond their wealth and abilities) to an Englishman. The Indian will likely get very defensive, explaining India's greatness. The Englishman will probably shrug their shoulders and say how you may be right. \n \nVery large populations of disparate culture and economics don't have a reason to feel together as a country, unless they are taught to be from a very young age. ",
"Europe suffered greatly at the hands of \"nationalists\" in both WW1 and WW2. They killed off practically an entire generation in *each* of those conflicts, so nationalism and patriotic zeal are associated with truely horrific events in their culture.\n\nBy contrast, the US only showed up at the tail end of WW1 and lost comparatively few soldiers, and the post-WW2 boom elivated the US to obvious Superpower status, so the patriotism pushed as part of the early 20th century war efforts was associated with success and heroism.",
"I'm an American and I certainly do not think this at all whatsoever.\n\nYoung children in America are indoctrinated to believe America is the greatest so that they don't question our leaders. Most are so heavily brainwashed that any questioning of 'American' actions is met with 'what, are you un-American?' or 'you must hate freedom.'\n\nFortunately, our current administration is leading many people to question their unwavering patriotism."
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3ftl74 | what/how is steel tampered? why does heat makes it stronger? | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/3ftl74/eli5_whathow_is_steel_tampered_why_does_heat/ | {
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"Hot steel when cooled slowly is composed of large \"crystals\". This \"ordered\" structure is very stiff but not very flexible, i.e. brittle.\n\nQuenching hot steel in cold (room temperature) oil forces it to be composed of small \"crystals\". This less \"ordered\" structure is not as stiff, being more flexible it is much less likely to break, hence it is perceived to be \"stronger\"."
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ae0pak | - why, after you become proficient in a foreigner language it is still hard to understand lyrics in music? the same words you already know are hard to understand in a music. why? | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/ae0pak/eli5_why_after_you_become_proficient_in_a/ | {
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"When you become fluent in a foreign language through proper teaching methods you are not a “native speaker.” You don’t understand colloquialisms or dialects. It’s the same reason a native English speaker does not understand the lyrics in metal or some rap songs."
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3rk32g | why can some electrical appliances turn on immediately when connected to a power source (like a laptop) but others can't? (like a cellphone) | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/3rk32g/eli5_why_can_some_electrical_appliances_turn_on/ | {
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"While I'm not an expert I know the reason in some items such an iPhones (we all know that pain) is to prevent the phone losing power during boot and corrupting the memory or OS.\n\nImagine your phone was completely dead and you stuck it on charge and it immediately start booting, but then you accidentally pulled the charger out, the phone would abruptly lose power and potentially cause a problem.\n\nMaking you wait until it's reached a couple % is the phone way of ensuring it'll make it completely through a boot cycle.... and a shutdown cycle also if you actually do pull power."
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9cpixr | if i pull a plug from an outlet does the electricity instantly disappear, if so why? | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/9cpixr/eli5_if_i_pull_a_plug_from_an_outlet_does_the/ | {
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"It doesn't really disappear. In fact, the electrons that were just flowing through your appliance are still there, but with less motion now. When the circuit is cut off, the electrons simply stop moving, but they remain inside the wires, lightbulb filamet, toaster, or whatever you pulled the plug on.",
"Yes. Electricity is the flow of current through a loop. If you break the loop at any point, the current stops and the effect of the electricity may stop. (The iron is still hot, but it's not getting hotter any more.)\n\nFlipping the switch, popping the breaker, blowing the fuse, or pulling the plug are all interruptions in the circuit.",
"The simplest explanation I can think of is to pretend that the electricity (electrons) are like water. When you turn the tap on (switch the power on) the water flows through the pipe (wire), when you turn the tap off (switch off) the water is still there, it just doesn't move any more. \n\nElectricity works in pretty much the same way - the electrons are still there when you pull the plug, they just aren't moving. \n\n"
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20ri1f | how large was the universe post inflation at 10^-32 seconds? | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/20ri1f/eli5_how_large_was_the_universe_post_inflation_at/ | {
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eokmbg | how does my car know to stop playing my music and switch to fm radio when traffic updates come on? | Like I'm assuming theres some voodoo in the airwaves? | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/eokmbg/eli5_how_does_my_car_know_to_stop_playing_my/ | {
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"Radio checks your last tuned frequency for a special signal that you can't hear, like a very high beep noise, every second. If the radio \"hears\" it, it switches to the radio.",
"Your car does that?? That's badass.",
"Never heard of or experienced this feature.\n\nWhat car do you have?",
"What? There are cars that do this?!",
"I'm starting to think this isn't a thing in America?",
"In European cars you have a TA button for Traffic Announcements. This will switch to radio if a TA signal is received."
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7y8q38 | why can't modern browsers like safari tell me how large the zip file that i am downloading is? | Every time I am downloading a GitHub zip of a project I am working on, safari never knows how large the zip file is, why is this? | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/7y8q38/eli5why_cant_modern_browsers_like_safari_tell_me/ | {
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"Chrome does not show the size either. If I am not misstanke the reson \nis that size information is optional in HTTP. There is a good reson that is is optional because HTML code generated dynamically, with for example a PHP script, the transmission can start before they are completely generated. You would have to wait if size was required\n\n\n\nI suspect it is not included is because the zip generation is likely done on the fly so the ZIP file done necessary exist when you ask for it and it is generated for you, They might even start to transmit it before it is completely generated depending on how zip work.\n\nThe coder had to add the size information if it was available and they did not do that. Most other zip files you download are files that already existed on the file system on the server so the standard transmit a file function on a server is used and that include the size as is it know for a preexisting file.",
"Browser can only tell you the file size if the web server which is hosting the file passes that information to your browser.\n\nIf the file is generated on the fly, web server does not have this information either, because when download process starts the file is not complete yet. ",
"Your question has already been answered by others, but by way of a solution, there’s a chrome extension that will tell you the size of a repo before you download: _URL_0_",
"Files are broken up into many (thousands) of [packets](_URL_0_), and the packets are sent to your computer, which then re-assembles them into the whole file. \n\nThe system is similar to loading people into a train; \"All aboard!!!\" and you don't need to count them, you just need to look and make sure nobody's left outside. \n\nGithub can send you the first packets of the zip right away, so you don't wait, and keep sending packets as fast as the internet and your download speed allow, until the last packet arrives with the message \"I am the last packet / no more packets after me\" built in. \n\nKnowing how many packets there are doesn't help the actual download in any way, and is not necessary; it's just a convenience for you, the user, so you can maybe estimate how long it'll take."
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1l9vdn | how do "anti-aging" and "firming" creams work? if they don't work, how do the companies justify their claims? | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/1l9vdn/eli5_how_do_antiaging_and_firming_creams_work_if/ | {
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"They don't justify their claims by simply not making any claims which are legally enforceable."
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2qp6wd | why don't airplanes fly lower? wouldn't it save time, and have less turbulence? is it for the sole purpose of less air resistance? | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/2qp6wd/eli5_why_dont_airplanes_fly_lower_wouldnt_it_save/ | {
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"generally there is less turbulence the higher you go. It would not save time because it's much harder to fly fast at lower altitudes. ",
"Air resistance is a huge factor, It could also be about the noise they make but I would think the main reason is they can fly faster when the air is less dense. Lower where the air is denser they can fly slower because the wings get lots of air providing lift, higher where there is less air the plane must/can fly faster to get the same lift. Generally it takes about 15 minutes to get to cruising altitude and on a flight that could take hours its much faster to fly up high quickly then to fly low and slower. "
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rf7eo | why are we all mad at ea games? | I can never seem to express this opinion in words. I just know I'm supposed to be mad as hell. | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/rf7eo/eli5_why_are_we_all_mad_at_ea_games/ | {
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"I can't speak for all EA games but they completely eliminated all competition with Madden by buying the exclusive rights to the NFL rosters, completely eliminating NFL 2k games, which were $19.99 I might add. With this exclusive license, they can make whatever crap they want with 0 competition.",
"If you don't know, than its not bothering you and you shouldn't be.\n\nPersonally, for me, its invasive DRM that makes playing games horribly convoluted and generally more troublesome than it should be. It's also terrible, *terrible* customer support(I once spent 24+ combined hours talking to EA support trying to get B2K activated in BF3 over the course of several weeks). \n\nAnd lastly, its the fact that EA just wants to capitalize on customer's expectations from good developers while never delivering. For example, the game *Spore* by Maxis was something I was very much looking forward to. When it came out, it was a game made for toddlers because EA wanted \"to appeal to a wider audience\". Battlefield 3 was simplified for the same reason and then rushed into the market as an unfinished product(with literally a 20-40% of the player base unable to even start the game at launch). They also never bother to fix bugs that were left in the game as a result of them rushing it.\n\nI could list many many more examples...",
"They also price gouge on Steam and other digital distributors.",
"I started playing guitar again. Thanks for being a piece of shit EA!",
"My hatred for EA started back when I bought Spore. See, EA decided \"we don't want people to resell these games\" and put an insanity level DRM on Spore. Basically, when you installed the game, it created some impossible to delete files in the root of your computer, then sent your computer info to their servers. Why did they do that? Because you were only allowed to install the game 3 times. Oh yeah, and changing ANY hardware on your computer made it count as a new install.. So, the special edition of Spore I spent $80 became worthless after I installed it on my computer, my laptop, then got a new video card for my computer.\n\nAfter that.. let's see.. Dragon Age: Origins. Trying to force you to buy dlc to play content that was on the disk at release? Then proceed to rub your face in it nonstop? Fuck you, EA. \n\nThat's when I stopped bothering with EA. Most people kept going, and had to deal with day 1 dlc in other games, and other various things designed to get every last dollar out of their customers. ",
"The simplest way I can explain is that, unlike other publishing or development companies, EA appears to go out of it's way to make it blatantly obvious they do not care about consumers, but rather consumer's money.\n\nEvery company just wants people's money, but they make attempts to veil their greed. ",
"Because they told us to challenge everything.",
"EA used to be its own dev studio. It was not always evil, in fact, far from it! Wikipedia talks about its early history: \"EA routinely referred to their developers as \"artists\" and gave them photo credits in their games and numerous full-page magazine ads. EA also shared lavish profits with their developers, which added to their industry appeal.\" As gaming became a bigger industry, like many large players, it shifted to publishing titles from other studios. Unfortunately, as it became more about management and less about creation, EA began to lose its way. Over the course of the 2000's, it got worse and worse until eventually it took over Activision's spot as the most hated gaming company.\n\nThe problem is that games cost more and more money to produce, and take more and more time. As that happens, a lot of the core decision making is taken out of the hands of the developers and into the hands of the investors. If a game costs $50 million to make, someone has to put all that up front, and they want to make sure they get their money back. Unfortunately, the people with the money tend not to know anything about video games. This is not really unique to EA.\n\nAs has been said, the publisher buys up developer studios, and then either releases a lifeless sequel or kills the dev's properties entirely, to be resurrected when EA sees fit.\n\nPopular studios EA has shuttered:\n\n* Origin games - Famous 80's PC studio founded by the Garriotts. Released popular titles like Wing Commander. Bought by EA in 1992. Everything fine until 1997 when they basically become the Ultima company until it wasn't making money anymore (2004), where it was shuttered.\n\n* Westwood - Command and Conquer dev. Released many popular RTS titles in this series. Bought by EA in 1998 but kept independent for the releases of TS, RA2. Generals was the first real title under EA supervision and was middling. Studio liquidated and absorbed. All CnC titles after middling to bad.\n* Bullfrog - Classic PC developer co-founded by P. Molyneux. Created many timeless games including Theme Park, Theme Hospital, Populous, Dungeon Keeper. Bought 1995, shuttered 2001(effectively). Since then EA has re-released Theme Park on the DS.\n* Maxis - Legendary PC sim studio co-founded by gaming pioneer and crazy person Will Wright. Created SimCity and sequels, spinoffs, The Sims. Bought by EA in 1997, released Spore, critical and commercial failure. 50% this was on Wright, though. Released TS3 in 2009 to commercial success - but let's face it, those people would've bought anything. \n* Pandemic Studios - Full Spectrum Warrior, Star Wars: Battlefront, Destroy All Humans. Bought by EA in 2007 while they were making The Saboteur. Closed immediately after the game's release (even though a lot of people thought it was awesome).\n \n\nThey don't always close their studios, though. Sometimes they just ruin all their games:\n\n* BioWare - Highly popular PC RPG developer. Released Baldur's Gate, Neverwinter Nights, Star Wars:KOTOR, Mass Effect. Bought by EA in 2007. Release schedule sped up with increased focus on franchise titles. As a result, games like DA2 and ME3 were rushed, messy titles with a lot of problems. SW:TOR is more marketing and 'omg full voice' then it is an actual game.\n\n* Danger Close(formerly known as EALA, formerly known as Dreamworks Interactive) - In between some cheap titles (Dilbert's Desktop Games!), released The Neverhood and Medal of Honor. Bought by EA in 2000, ran MoH into the ground, did slave work for EA which at least resulted in Boom Blox, and finally told to revive MoH only to humiliate it again. 50% of that may be DICE's fault. Speaking of which...\n\n* DICE - Popular PC developer responsible for epic large-scale combat series Battlefield. Bought by EA in 2004 just before BF2's release. Even with EA, manage to release BF:2142 to acclaim, then Mirror's Edge and BFBC2 to less. BC2 popular but still seen as dumbed down. EA makes a big push with BF3, but their influence results in another rushed, incomplete game.\n* Critereon - Maybe the exception to the rule? Maker of popular racing series Burnout. Bought by EA in 2004, made some okay Burnout games, brought it back hard with BP in 2008, and a legit Need for Speed revival in 2010. Time will tell with these guys.\n\nThere are others, these are just the big ones. As you can see, it takes a few years from the studios to go from bought to shit - whether or not that means that it took time for EA to ruin them, or if it means that EA didn't really go to shit until 2004 on is something we will probably never know as industry outsiders.\n\nBeyond that, EA has commited other crimes. In 2004 the infamous 'EA Spouse' began a livejournal detailing the horrid working conditions in EA's studios and introduced the gaming public to the concept of 'crunch time'. They got a lot of bad press for this. Of course the sports games warrant mention, too. EA makes football, soccer, hockey, golf, boxing, and snowboarding games. Some of those come out every year. As we've seen above, EA doesn't seem to understand that you can't make a good game in a year. So they mostly are identical to last years model as they come out, with 1 or 2 major features and a slight graphical upgrade. They are also very heavily geared towards hardcore fanboys and can be somewhat inaccessible (I'm looking at you, Madden). They used to make basketball games but their 2010 game was so bad they were forced to pull it in disgrace literally weeks before the release date.\n\nLastly, people's butts are pretty hurt about Origin. Origin's real problem is that it's not almost a decade old like Steam is, and doesn't benefit from that many years of bug fixing and feature adds. To be fair though, EA knew what it was up against, and released their inferior product anyway (picking up on a theme here?). For the most part, people are annoyed that it is required for some games just so they can get it on your system, where it takes up space since it has no value-add features like Steam does. It doesn't help that BF3 has its own web interface, so to some people it seems like it's 2 pieces of unwieldy horseshit between them and their game. Not me though, Battlelog 4 lyfe.\n\nIn all seriousness though, to sum up, EA is bad because they're a huge company who doesn't have a real grip on what they should be doing or having their studios do. Unfortunately, most gamers don't have a passion for industry knowledge like some of us do - they just buy the sequels. And as long as the money is there for these incomplete, unsatisfying games, EA will continue to chrun them out. Hope that helps."
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e8vrel | why do vocal harmonies of older songs sound have that rich, "airy" quality that doesn't seem to appear in modern music? (crosby stills and nash, simon and garfunkel, et al) | I'd like to hear a scientific explanation of this!
[Example song](_URL_0_)
I have a few questions about this.
I was once told that it's because multiple vocals of this era were done live through a single mic (rather than overdubbed one at a time), and the layers of harmonies disturb the hair in such a way that it causes this quality. Is this the case? If it is, what exactly is the "disturbance"? Are there other factors, such as the equipment used, the mix of the recording, added reverb, etc?
EDIT: uhhhh well I didn't expect this to blow up like it did. Thanks for everyone who commented, and thanks for the gold! | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/e8vrel/eli5_why_do_vocal_harmonies_of_older_songs_sound/ | {
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"Some of it is the mixing/mastering. [this “Twenty Thousand Hertz” episode](_URL_0_) and the following episode covers the differences in modern mixing/mastering, versus mixing/mastering in previous decades. \n\nSome of it is that songs used to be recorded in a single session in a big group, yeah. There are differences in the way they were recorded, and the ways that it’s been mastered make a big difference. Same with the size and acoustics of the studio in which it was recorded.",
"I think it is just a style of harmonizing. These things go in and out of fashion over the years. It just so happens that CSN and S & G were active at the same time.\n\nI'm sure there are modern groups that sing this way from time to time.",
"They loved doubling up vocals back then, as in you have the same vocal track repeated a fraction of a second later. John Lennon is doubled up on nearly all of his songs. They'd do this with harmonies as well - each vocal onto a single track and then doubled up. That's a lot of vocal going on at once, with sounds overlapping and interfering with each other, giving it that swirling shimmery sound.\n\nWhat I also notice about the example you posted is that every vocal harmony is at a similar level, as if you're listening to a group of singers in a room. Modern music tends to go with the lead vocalist pushed to front, and backing singers for the harmonies, pushed further back in the mix. \n\nAny kind of commercial music is competing in a kind of arms race of sound, attempting to stand out. Producers come up with a trick that makes their song sound bigger, then pretty soon everyone's doing it. Vocal doubling was one of those tricks. As we move into the 80s, the backing track becomes more of a focus. There's only so much you can do with vocals, but instruments and production techniques are changing all the time.",
"A lot of harmonies today are auto-tuned and represent only 1 - 3 voices. I sing in a church choir of 20 voices and we still sound like your \"old fashioned\" example. I think it is the fact that different singers' voices have different timbre - different tone and a different mix of overtones / undertones - and that a larger number of voices has a more full and interesting mix of harmonics.",
"Overdubbing was common even in this era; in fact, the effect here is produced by multitracking, a form of overdubbing in which multiple takes of the same part by the same vocalist(s) are overlaid and bounced to a new track. What you were told about acoustic disturbance isn't totally inaccurate, as the perceived effect itself comes from the constructive & destructive interference of the overlaid waveforms, but this doesn't require that they interact in the air, which you can test for yourself just by graphing any two simple waveforms and then graphing their sum. The same waveform summed with itself will produce the same waveform but with twice the amplitude/volume (1+1=2 (constructive)), while a waveform summed with its inverse will produce silence (-1+1=0 (destructive)). Where no two takes of a part will ever be identical, the multiple waveforms interact with one another in such a way as to create a complex pattern of interference, reinforcing & attenuating certain frequencies in a non-fixed way, which we perceive as this 'airy' quality you describe, and which cannot be produced quite the same just by processing the signal with a unison or chorus effect as is common today.",
"I've found those same vocals in Brandi Carlile music, from Belle Brigade, and that recent sibling band that I wish I liked more...\n\n_URL_0_",
"Check out a documentary called The Harmony Game. In it, the producer of many Simon and Garfunkel classics details his vocal recording and mixing style which basically amounts to having each vocal recorded and doubled individually and then both vocals on one mic giving the mixer several tracks to pan and balance.",
"Do you really want airy music from Pitbull?",
"Here's a recent song from Fleet Foxes. The album recording is beautiful, but this cover just might be my new favorite thing on the internet. \n\n_URL_0_\n\nYou'll notice they're all sharing one mic in close proximity, which supports the explanation you heard.",
"Part of it might have to do with the loudness war and songs being mastered for shitty audio gear now days. The loudness war is artist wanting their music to be mastered louder and louder, which results in less fidelity in the song because its all kinda jammed up there rather than using the full spectrum.",
"Modern compression and limiting techniques also tend to kill any sense of natural ambience in music.\n\nIf we REALLY want a deep dive into this, the proliferation of digital effects has reshaped sound quality as well. As good as digital reverbs can be, IMO they are still no match for dedicated reverb rooms and huge, real, plate reverbs.",
"I'm not sure if it's what you're referring to, but you're probably hearing the room's reverb in mono, as it was recorded through the (single) mic.\n\nThese days the vocal will be recorded drier (without the room's reverb, and probably mic'd closer to the mouth), and some reverb/delay effects will be added that aren't strictly mono",
"Everything is autotuned these days. Autotuned vocals have a particular sound that takes away a lot of the natural imperfections that give the older recordings such a natural character.",
"Dude. Seriously. These people don't know what they are talking about. CSN sounds incredible, not because of any recording tricks, it's because they are incredible together. That's how and why they got together.",
"Because all modern music is tuned to perfection. For a harmony to sound really nice you need some imperfection.",
"I see a lot of good info, but I didnt see anyone talk about this. When people sing in the same room the vibrations of their voices actually affect each other. When perfect harmonies are sung there are natural overtones created by the stacking of the sound waves. When voices are autotuned or electronically harmonized you are actually missing a lot of frequencies that natural harmonization would have, making the newer stuff sound flat and robotic.",
"Vocals were often recorded much further off the mic back then 1-2' rather than 6\". \nAlso not everything was pitch corrected and an amount of tuning variation between harmonies can make them sound thicker and richer.\n\nEdit: auto correct hates me",
"Came here knowing the example would be \"Suite: Judy Blue Eyes\".\n\nWas not disappointed. Thanks OP.",
"I think it just comes down to stylistic changes and what you're listening to specifically. Go check out Fleet Foxes for a modern band using multi-part harmonies. Multi-part harmonies are just not a big thing in music, usually songs only have a singly harmony, overdubbed by the same singer, and mixed lower in the mix.",
"Because they were singing and recording together, they were tuning to each other with natural intervals, not auto-tuned to equal temperament.",
"Cause they were actually singing in harmony instead of a bunch of separate tracks being mixed together by a computer and then artificially tuned.",
"Karen Carpenter must have done this stuff. I mean, her voice was magic all on its own! - - but didn't they do overdubs or something? I know it was before autotune or whatever that's called.",
"There’s a lot of comments here that are technically true, but aren’t really related to the issue OP is asking about. Yes, there’s the loudness war and digital effects and autotune and all that. Those have definitely changed things. \n\nBut the main thing is just the style of music. It’s just not as popular as it was 40 years ago. That’s why it doesn’t appear as often in modern music. It’s the same reason you don’t hear a lot of disco on the radio anymore. \n\nThere is plenty of music coming out today that still sounds like this that was recorded and mixed digitally on modern equipment.",
"Because it's not popular? Hiphop doesnt have record scratches anymore, rock doesnt use twangy clean guitars, hammond organs aren't in every rock song, folk doesn't include mouth harp in every song etc. \n\nIt's just an aesthetic that was really popular in the vocal pop and folk groups in the 50s and 60s, and kept going into the 80s and 90s but kind of died down after that. You still have bands like Bon Iver, Fleet Foxes, Beirut, Tindersticks, Elephant Revival, even more popular things like The Dead South and Mumford & Sons do a lot of quite airy harmonies regularly in their music.",
"Check out The Milk Carton Kids if you dig Simon & Garfunkel. Modern version of a similar style",
"As another point, what are some modern songs that actually have harmony parts akin to CSNY? I can't recall any modern acts that have harmony.",
"I’ve seen several responses stating that recording multiple harmonies in the same take result in this sound. In CSN(Y)’s followup album, Deja Vu, they recorded all of their vocal parts (and instrumental parts, for that matter) separately.",
"Check out Mountain Man for some excellent harmonies, like anything of theirs! Lead singer of Sylvan Esso is one of three women in the group.",
"Musician weighing in here, there are several reasons mainstream modern music **in general** sounds worse than a lot of older music despite more advanced recording technology and techniques.\n\nThe biggest reason (apart from modern tendencies to isolate each vocal track and record one at a time) is compression. Compression is essentially when you boost the volume of a track or instrument to make the quiet sounds match the volume of the loudest sounds. Most mainstream music is compressed to the point that every single track in a recording is as loud as the other, which kills a lot of the distinctive tones and removes any variety and nuance from one beat to another. It literally strips away a lot of the quality of the instrument being recorded, be it a voice or a guitar.\n\nI don't mean to say that all modern music is like that, there are some incredibly nuanced modern bands, some even managed to break into the mainstream (Alabama Shakes, Vulfpeck, etc), but modern pop music (hip hop and country included) is hot garbage where sound quality is concerned, even if you like it, you know it all sounds the same.",
"Something to keep in mind that in the 60s and 70s, there was very little digital anything in the studio, especially reverb. Most methods of creating reverb employed some type of mechanical device.\n\nThe cheapest and most prevalent was spring reverb, as found in a lot of guitar amps of the era. Part of the audio signal was sent into one end of a long pair of springs (12\"-18\" depending on the manufacturer) and then recovered on the other end. Since the signal bounced around on the spring several times before dying out, the sound approximated the kind of reverb you would hear in a small room with hard surfaces. It was kind of metallic sounding.\n\nAnother method was the \"plate\". A 4'x8' metal sheet (often stainless steel) was suspended from stiff springs in a wooden frame. A transducer was mounted on one end and a pickup on the other. This provided more lush resonance than a spring, but was similarly metallic sounding\n\nThe best studios use the old school \"echo chamber\" method where the build a long concrete room/vault in the basement or in a separate building, stuck a speaker on one end and a microphone on the other. This approximated room resonance the best because it literally WAS room resonance.\n\nUnless they included some way to modify the physical parameters of the device itself, all of these old types had a very distinctive and consistent sound. Every recording made in Studio B at A & M Studios, for example, probably used the same reverb device, which means they had a very similar \"lushness\".\n\n In the modern studio, pretty much all forms of reverb are created digitally. That provides nearly infinite ways to modify the character of the reverb; length of each echo, number of repeats, increasing or decreasing a particular frequency with each repeat, etc.",
"I’m late to the party but something I don’t see mentioned much is that a lot of it is a very clear stylistic trend in arranging music. Big thickly voiced chords with lots of 3rds are not in vogue. The trend by and large across most popular genres is more toward open, powerful, clean chords (or just single note lines) that do not contain a lot of harmonic material. I say this as someone who does it for a living - if I layer up chords with nice fat harmony I get the note “it sounds old” or “cheesy”",
"Everyone is going on about the studio, the mix, the mastering, digital effects etc. that’s not the root cause. It’s simply the style of the music and the talent. I have no doubt we could recreate that sound with modern recording equipment IF the talent and desire existed. \n\nI’m an audio engineer and sure there’s subtle differences in analog vs digital recording and I can expand on that but it’s really not the root cause",
"Lots of good info in this thread, so let me give you some counter examples, i.e. more modern songs with that have amazing vocal harmonies.\n\n* Cowboy Junkies, The Trinity Session\n* The Young Uns, particularly The Ballad of John Longstaff\n* The Milk Carton Kids",
"OP if you're looking for a semblance of this in modern music check Milk Carton Kids. Great harmony.",
"All these posts about \"natural harmonization\" vs \"electronically harmonized\" and other rubbish about digital recordings making these sounds impossible, are mostly flat-out wrong, technically impossible and also going in the wrong direction. I don't know why that dreadful comment is top at the moment as it's just completely wrong.\n\nThe reason why the vocal harmonies of older songs sound \"airy\" is purely and simple down to production. Aside from minor influences such as analogue recording gear, mostly it's down to:\n\n - singers who actually had to be good at their craft because they didn't have autotune, and they trained / practiced a LOT.\n - the style of music giving a lot of space to the vocals. In the track linked above, there is very little high in the mix aside from the vocals.\n - double-tracking vocals to make it sound like the voice is richer (this technique is still used but not quite in the same way)\n - the age before the \"loudness wars\" where dynamic range is compressed and everything is in your face, removing the space where that airiness can sit.\n - multipart arrangements with pleasing harmonies. Even in the CSN song above, when there is a single voice in the lead, the \"airiness\" is gone. You can hear when a single voice is multitracked, when harmonies are used, and when a single voice is used alone.\n\nThat's really all it is. Be a great vocal performer, give the voice a lot of room in the mix, good harmonies (either yourself or other singers), multitrack it for that airy quality.\n\nSource: used to be an audio engineer and performer.",
"There is so much misinformation in the comments. The sound is the result of the recording technology and the mixing and singing style of that era.\n\nFor technology, you're hearing old mics, effects, mixing consoles, and recoding devices (most likely tape). For style, there's a style in mic setup, use of effects, mixing, and for the singer, there's the singing style of that era, too.\n\nUse old equipment the way it was used back then with a singer that is accustomed to using their voice from the style of that era, and you can replicate the sound you're talking about. With skilled enough audio engineers and musicians, you can emulate this sound with software, too.",
"Mixing aside I think it's 1 5 10 all male harmonies.\n\nIn the style youre talking about melody sings in normal range, male falsetto sings octave plus a third (10 total) and mid sings the 5th. [Simon and Garfunkel](_URL_1_) Use octave separated male male harmony but are missing the third harmony that rounds it out . Csn's use of 1 and 5 harmonies are definately unique since singing a third higher or lower is more common. But balanced with the falsetto third harmony up an octave you get massive range, and a different sound. Think [bohemian rhapsody](_URL_4_) pushing the limits of their voices although they use more beach boys esque harmony (see below) but great range. [momma’s and the papas](_URL_3_) have great harmony but use counter melodies male and female so it doesn't mean the same way. \n\n\nNext most similar is the most common duet harmony that your probably comparing csn to. Often mixed male and female it lacks the complexity. Sibling harmony like [first aid kit](_URL_0_) interesting haunting harmonies and they both sing the melody sometimes for a doubling effect. [Jack black singing extreme](_URL_2_) Is another example of the much more common up or down a third harmony that's common.\n\nIn comparison the beach boys use similar spread in their harmonies but they rely heavily of the seventh chord 2 4 5 7, a dissonant non smooth tense style that is actually popular in 50's music and even old hymns and church music. Also maj7 chords.\n\nAnother comparison is barber shop. This has the same notes as csn but in the same octave usually 1 3 5 or 7ths but never the octave above. It sounds crowded and outdated. Depth in barber shop is given by adding a simple walking base line usually an octave lower playing the root note of any chord. This type of music usually also has simple chord progressions of 1st 4th and 5th.\n\nAcapella harmonies usually have an ooh aah background sound so they aren't singing the lyrics, producing another style. Same with choral arrangements or backup singers which dont sign the melody but instead add a rhythm section vibe.\n\nSo with all the harmony styles I can think of that all fundamentally use the same notes in different ways that style your talking about which I'm caling 1 5 10 male harmony is difficult to arrange, difficult vocally and just out of style compared to the third or choral/backup harmonies used so often today.",
"Any recording engineer will tell you that a particular \"sound\" whether it be from the modern era or older is not due to any single factor but a number of little differences that produce the signature when stacked together. A few of them in this case could be:\n\n1. Recording technique: As is mentioned already, tracking harmonies together verses stacked (individually at a time) creates a softer, but more cohesive sound. If you have ever played a digital piano you will notice that individual notes can (in the best emulations) be almost utterly convincing but chords less so, because the resonance of the notes together impact each other on a real piano.\n2. Recording equipment: Tube gear and tape were used in these earlier eras. Tape in particular can mute the high end frequencies. When you add them back or compensate for them you get the same frequencies but sweetened by harmonic distortion and non-linear characteristics. Digital is cleaner but harder. Older technologies are (generally) softer and sweeter. Plate reverbs were also more popular back then. They produce a rich, haunting sound that is very beautiful but less suited to modern music. Yes plate reverbs still get used a lot today but it more subtle ways and often with a digital emulation rather than the real thing. \n3. Recording spaces: A room is as important to a sound recording as light is to a film recording. And in the 70s there were some LEGENDARY rooms that simply don't exist today. It's also one of the reasons for THAT signature Motown sound. Recording spaces today are more perfectly designed and built for a variety of recordings. Older, less perfect, more creative spaces gave different sounds. \n4. Fashion: There was a popular style for harmonies of that era. You can hear similarities in something like Fleet Foxes in more modern times but when you have a critical mass of artists all going for one \"sound\" you are going to get an overall higher standard and the best of those will be better than the best today, when the fashion is not as popular.\n\nAdd all these things together and although each is not a game changer, the cumulative effect is a unique sound that is not easily replicated today.",
"Simon and Garfunkel always sang what is known as \"Close Harmony.\" That is the notes of each melody were very close on the scale and often notes would be shared. Lots of artists still harmonize but most tend to make triads and plain chords. Close harmonizing is actually pretty difficult to do the way that Simon and Garfunkel did which is why you dont hear a lot of it any more. I had this question a few years back and went on a journey down the music theory rabbit hole to find this out.\n\n\n\n\n\n\nEdit: Removed: \"So Simon might have been singing a tonic while garfunkel would sing a supertonic, basically always creating that eary disonance you get by playing two notes adjacent to one another on the piano.\"",
"I am an engineer, and work heavily with vocalists. In my experience, there are two main differences between current recordings and vintage, like your examples:\n\nRecording technique: When they recorded back then, they almost always did it in big studios (big, amazing sounding rooms with pleasing acoustics) on top-dollar mics (and here’s the important part) a good distance (8-16 inches) away from the mic (as opposed to now, when people get right on it). When you’re close to a mic, two things happen: One, the sound has more bass, or low frequencies. This is called the proximity effect. As you back away from a mic, you get less exaggerated low end, and the high frequencies (high end) don’t change nearly as much. Two, the closer you are, the less room sound (the resulting acoustics of the space you’re in) you capture. Bad sounding room? Get closer to the mic so you pick up less of the room. This makes a huge difference from the get-go.\n\nSo if you want a great, natural sounding recording, get in a great sounding room, and let the mic pick up both the source *and* the pleasant acoustics. Proximity is the main way to balance it. Farther away, more treble and “air” in the recorded sound. And that’s just the way they liked it. It yielded great results.\n\nThe other difference is in mixing technique, which others have touched on. These days, we like a little more compression (which makes things louder as a whole, reducing the difference between the quietest and loudest parts of the source) on our stuff, but more importantly, we like our mixes to be bassier, which means that other stuff—like vocals—has to be balanced to that. The whole mixing approach is different, just because we have a higher sonic standard. Engineers of the 60s and 70s made some amazing sounding stuff, but the kick drums and the bass don’t always deliver in the consistent way the hits do now. Low end is vital to a massive, punchy mix. And they just didn’t always have it dialed in back then. Anyway, how you treat the low end affects how you want to mix the vocals. E.g, a banger with tons of bass probably likes a loud, heavily compressed lead vocal. A folkier acoustic number (more like S & G or CSN) would like a dynamic (varying widely in volume) lead vocal that is “spacier” (recorded or perceived to be in a large, open space and less in your face), which befits the vibe of the music.\n\nThere are also techniques like double-tracking (where the vocalist records a second take parallel to the first take, matching it usually as closely as possible), which can be treated different ways. The Eagles would do this sort of thing with their background vox and pan (in stereo, panning is the distribution of a sound between left and right channels) the doubles to opposite sides. Say the BGs are in 3 different parts (3 different notes at a time): they might pan one set of the 3 parts to the left channel, then the doubles to the right channel. If the doubles are performed well, this yields an incredibly satisfying effect, particularly for stereo. This is just one example of a widely used technique.\n\nCSN would even pan each voice (see *Helplessly Hoping* and listen on headphones for a better idea) differently across the stereo field. This isn’t the answer to your question, but it’s another technique that maybe isn’t as common today. Modern music doesn’t seem to like having stuff panned way off to the sides, like the Beatles did (drums on one side, vocals on the other, and so on) occasionally (See *Lady Madonna*).\n\nThese days, it seems like the in-your-face vocal style is the thing, but that doesn’t mean people don’t record/mix the old way still.\n\nBut IMO, it’s mostly just the way we like to hear music. We like “hyped” vocal sounds, which are really pretty unnatural. Older music tends to sound more natural. Producing recorded music is pretty illusory.\n\nOh, dear, I’ve written quite the essay. I hope that helps a little.",
"I was at a private concert, without microphones, that featured two people singing while facing each other. They moved forward and back depending on the effect they were looking for. The sound effect was phenomenal and I can't imagine that the effect of the voices bouncing off each other could be captured by microphones. There was dampening and enhancing of rich sounds that I simply cannot describe. \n\nFrancis Dunnery of \"It Bites\" a former \"Top of the Pops\" UK prog rock star was the featured vocalist the name of the female vocalist accompanying him escapes me.",
"Recording Engineer Here - You describing a quality that is impossible to relate to (unless it's you). So, the discussion below really wont give you an accurate answer. Even your description of \"airy\" would be different from how I or others perceive it. There are a million differences between how things might have been recorded, performed, mixed, mastered, reproduced, performed yada yada.. And so - so real way to quantify an answer. \n\nIn modern recording, most mortals, have the ability to capture extremely high resolution recordings that would rival some of the best equipment of the 40's-90's. Anyone can fire up garage band with a decent $100 microphone (maybe cheaper) and as long as the room sounds good and the performance is good, it can be amazing. Plenty of good examples of great songs recorded on relatively inexpensive equipment. (I just wanted to rule out equipment)\n\nWhere I net out is simply.... Performance, how it was captured and preference. Go listen to the new Highwomen record, it's recorded on some of the best equipment developed in the 60's-today. It's warm, and to me; amazing. Alternatively the harmonies on any TPain record sound like robots on autotune. I'm just suggesting that the \"air\" you desire can be found in modern times. You might not have found it yet.",
"As someone who was spent the majority of my life singing backup and lead and recording in studios I have noticed the same thing, and I think there is more than one culprit. I'll run them down. \n(DISCLAIMER: I am just one guy, with one opinion, sharing my personal experience, and claim to represent no status quo or prevalent industry opinion. Thanks!) \n\n\n**Recording equipment:** \nWhatever can be said about the latest Avid, 128 audio tracks, 512 instrument tracks, and 1,024 MIDI tracks digital monsters, UNless they are in the hands of someone who understands EQ, frequency, Phase cancellation, and the proper use of Preamps, and Compression, The result can often come out crystal clear, but lacking in that human warmth, (What I largely consider a lower mid range richness of tone and color) \nMost of the people I record with now, have \"split the difference\" using Pro Tools along with some Retro preamps, and of the new \"lunch box\" (Half rack) outboard gear. So, recording gear is crucial to this conversation. \nSuffice it to say that for me, (Nyah! You kids get off my lawn!) nothing really comes close to an analog recording rig, like a Studer Recorder, with a Neve or Trident console. It won't make you sing any better, but it will pick up the nuances of your vocal tone in a way that is not magnified, or diminished because of anything digital. And it's been my experience, that recording analog, or digital with really vintage mics, so long as you use good outboard gear, which can be expensive enough to make one want to just say \"screw it, we'll record and fix it in the mix\" \nWhereas Analog was the industry standard, and the equipment was fairly consistent in quality and design between the recording years of 1950, and 1990, and lot of the vocals of that era bear the similar sound of old school recorders, consoles and mics. This is considered to be the classic typical vocal sound in the recording industry. \n(The story of single-mic, one-take recording, vs multitracking is an amazing story that I will not go into here, but you can check [this link](_URL_1_) for more info on it) The recording you provided by CS & N was recorded on an Ampex 300 two‑inch tape machine with old-school universal 1176 compressors. \n\n\n**Including............**\n\n \n**Microphones:** \nA Lot of the times I see people use a lot of new plugins to make up for the fact that they cannot afford like the Neumann U87, and 47, the Neumann TLM series, the AKG 414, (One of my favorites back in the day because it sounded great and I could afford it) Sme of the other all-time mics can be found [Here](_URL_3_). IN a world with so many choices and so many speciality mics getting promoted from all over the world, many of the designed in Europe and Made in Asia, practically all of them advertise \"that classic sound\" or \"That vintage sound\" \nThe mic they are recording on based on the photo seen here, appears to me to be either a Neumann TLM 67, or U 87, although I am not certain when the U87 came out. \nThese two factors had a profound effect on the vocal quality, that is both warm and airy,. There there is...... \n\n\n**Natural vocal range and EQ dynamics.** \nMultiple vocals on one track, can get filled with information quickly, glutting the sound, and packing the mid range, to make the vocals a little more like an [old Tom Jones record](_URL_0_), (They absolutely rock. Not knocking them in any way) than say, a Freddie Mercury recording. Softer, higher range vocalists, tend to sound better in my opinion when stacked for harmony vocals, with [THIS SONG](_URL_2_) being a great example of it, than bg throaty tenors, which tend to take up a lot of space, and often work better for leads. \n\n\nA problem that also sometimes arises is Phase cancellation, (When two opposing sounds cancel one another out, as sometimes happens in multi-mic recording, when they are not placed correctly) \n**Single vocalist harmonies:** \n\nAlso when one vocalist (as it happens a lot these days with a single vocalist doing all the vocal tracks) this heavy effect I spoke of can occur unless the vocalist has a wide dynamic range. \nThree different people all with different vocal quality and ranges, have less of a tendency to try to sing exactly alike tonally, and and don't crowd a single part of the EQ spectrum., and just sound more human, because, they are. \n\n\nRoom Bleed: \nIn a digital world, often with the emphasis being in each track being perfect, and isolated, a lot of the magic that occurs in vocal recording gets lot, because room bleed can add great overtone and coloring to a vocal harmony, especially when used with compression. multi mic'ing in different position in a rom can capture some of the airy qualities you spoke of. \n\n\nSo, trying to make every track antiseptic and perfect, a separate entity until itself, works for some records and not so much for others. \n\n\nThank you for giving me a nice 40-minute reason to Ignore my guitar player here in the studio while he \"Figures out what he is feeling\" \n\n\nMB",
"Long time engineer/mixer here. Simple answer--Autotune. What gives harmonies and group vocals richness and thickness is actually the constant ever-so slight detuning and wavering that human voices naturally have when singing, and that subtle rubbing against each other is what gives you the thickness. Back in the day pre-Autotune you couldn't \"tune\" vocals, either the singers were singing on or close enough to the pitch or they weren't, and they had to do it again until they got it right.\n\nIn all of today's recordings, everything is Autotuned almost as a default, even regardless of whether the vocalists are good singers or not. And I have experienced firsthand many times when mixing and editing how much thinner group and harmony vocals get when they're perfectly tuned, versus leaving them alone to have their natural fluctuations and flaws. It's not subtle.\n\nNot only this, but so much of the subtleties that convey emotion and vibe exist in the flaws of a performance. Listen to classic Aretha or Led Zeppelin recordings and you'll hear lots of places where the vocals are what would be called \"pitchy\" today, yet that's where all the vibe and soul is, in those imperfections. \n\nI myself have worked on projects where I was tuning a vocal, even subtly, and kept wondering why it seemed to lose emotional impact when comparing against the original untuned version, and it was the fact that a good portion of the emotion was in the little flaws, which makes sense since it's flaws that make us human and not robots.",
"forget Simon and Gart, its too new and manipulated in the studio. Go hear some Stanley Brothers \n_URL_0_ \nthe chorus, OMG",
"I would like to add the fact that nowadays double, triple and quadruple tracking of vocals and harmonies is very common, but the trend is to tune them very strictly and then align them perfectly with digital tools. \nThe “bigger” sound of old recordings was given by the natural phasing of slightly different performances, one against the other.",
"Check out Jacob Collier, he's a brilliant young musician from London who's really into Harmony and layering voices & sounds!\nHe's just insane and regarded as some kind of musical genius of this generation.",
"\\ > **that doesn't seem to appear in modern music?** \n\nTwo words: Fleet Foxes\n\n\\ > If it is, what exactly is the \"disturbance\"? \n\nIt's called \"resonance\"",
"Love the harmonies in Simon and Garfunkel’s [Only Living Boy in New York](_URL_0_). \n\nI have no idea what the method of recording is called, but I love the final result.",
"Very simply because the producers and engineers dont leave any space or headroom in the mix and master anymore. The dynamic range of a song is very important.",
"Analog mixing desks, amps, and magnetic tape. They can capture the highest frequencies, which is the ‘air’ or presence you’re talking about, in a much more organic way than digital equipment, which is cold and clinical (and approximate).",
"Surprised nobody mentioning that they used tubed equipment, even the microphones had tubes.",
"I think people are not taking into account how much modern music is compressed compared to earlier material. Modern music is compressed to within an inch of it's life to sound as loud and full as possible. Once this practice started, you were basically forced to do the same otherwise your song would actually sound quieter by comparison. Another good example of this is TV commercials. They always 'sound' louder because everything is maxed, unlike a TV show that will have peaks and dips.\n\nWithout such heavy compression earlier music should and does sound more open and 'airy'. This should account for the difference in sound you are hearing.",
"Analog vs digital recording. \n\nAnalog recording lets the art form the sound waves while digital recording confines the art form to parameters determined at top and bottom, clipping occurs if you breach those parameters. \n\nThe richness you hear in the uncompressed expression of song captured naturally and reproduced from a natural sounding master"
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[
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"https://youtu.be/9C1BCAgu2I8",
"https://youtu.be/1ISYT6EeUM0",
"https://youtu.be/N-aK6JnyFmk",
"https://youtu.be/fJ9rUzIMcZQ"
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"https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7lIvcm1pltI",
"https://www.liverpoolmuseums.org.uk/wml/exhibitions/thebeatgoeson/thebeatgoesonline/technology/studios/multitrack.aspx",
"https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4tMFqa_K7bg",
"https://music.tutsplus.com/tutorials/11-of-the-best-studio-microphones-ever-how-and-when-to-use-them--audio-140"
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1pl1ys | why old war footage always appears to be in fast forward. | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/1pl1ys/eli5_why_old_war_footage_always_appears_to_be_in/ | {
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"cause it's filmed at a low framerate. we play it at 24 or higher framerate so it's smooth. otherwise it'd look jittery. ",
"I believe this results from capturing film at a frame rate lower than the frame rate at which the film is being played back.\n\nTo make things simple, let's pretend you film something at 15 frames per second and then play it back at 30 frames per second. \n\nWhen the film was captured, 30 frames would cover a duration of 2 seconds of action. So, if you play the film back at 30 frames per second, you are seeing two seconds worth of action over a duration of just one second (so everything appears to move faster than normal).\n\nIn reality, the difference between the capture frame rate and the playback frame rate is probably not as large as 15 vs. 30, but you may still notice the effect on speed of the action as it's played back.\n\nThere are a number of reasons why old footage may have been captured at lower frame rates than normal, including: cost (the lower the frame rate, the cheaper it would have been to film), mobility/portability (higher frame rates would have required cameramen to carry lots of extra film with them which would not be very practical during war battles), and lack of universal standardization over frame rates."
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2d146o | is the top liquid in a hot coffee cup hotter or colder than the bottom? | My wife and I can not agree if the top coffee in a coffee cup is hotter or colder than the bottom, can anyone help resolve this issue? I say it is hotter, based on my limited knowledge of convection. The hotter coffee rises, cools slightly, then falls to the bottom of the cup, it is replaced by relatively warmer coffee below, the cycle continues until equilibrium with the air. I also understand that the cup will loose heat from all sides of the cup but more so from the top. My wife is using empirical evidence, she can drink from the top, but if she uses a straw, she says the coffee on the bottom is much hotter; I think this is from the method. When you drink from the top it is spread out more than a larger quantity on a smaller area of the mouth via a straw, or, the coffee in the straw is heating up as it is being drawn to the surface. We have searched on line but can not find a conclusive answer. | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/2d146o/eli5is_the_top_liquid_in_a_hot_coffee_cup_hotter/ | {
"a_id": [
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"score": [
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"text": [
"The upper part is able to lose heat much more quickly to its surroundings, cooling it down more than the bottom part."
]
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[]
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1ov77o | why doesn't our dna mix with blood donors' dna and change our dna? | **EDIT**: Thank you all for your replies (even the meanie). I don't have a science background so that explains why my question seems "dumb." Thanks again. | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/1ov77o/eli5_why_doesnt_our_dna_mix_with_blood_donors_dna/ | {
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"First of all, red blood cells, which is the largest part of the blood you receive, have no DNA at all.\n\nSecond, unless you are some types of bacteria which are designed to incorporate foreign DNA, you can't uptake foreign DNA.",
"To expand upon /u/mjcapples explanation:\n\nRed blood cells (RBCs) are somewhat unique insofar as, early in their development, they lose their nuclei--the innermost 'core' of a cell which contains, among other things, the DNA. Since RBCs are primarily \"semi-disposable oxygen sponges\", a nucleus would really just get in the way, preventing the storage of more oxygen (like a sponge with a large jelly core). As such, over millions of years, we evolved RBCs that shed their nuclei early on to make more room for all that delicious oxygen.\n\nEven if they did have DNA however (as some parts of our blood do), it wouldn't matter. DNA doesn't (normally) just float around wherever, randomly bumping into other DNA and exchanging genes. Except during active cell division, it's kept inside the gated fortress that is a cell's nucleus. In order for foreign DNA to even *reach* your DNA, it must first cross through the cell membrane and the nuclear membrane (both of which evolved to protect against that). Viruses can do this, but they're specially evolved to mimic parts of our own biology or directly inject their genetic material into the cell. Even so, just having DNA next to each other is not enough. You need certain sub-cellular machines called enzymes to actually split our DNA and patch in the foreign DNA. And since these machines include some error-checking it's not an easy task to simply merge in different DNA.\n\nAll this is to say, don't go injecting yourself with spider guts. It's not going to give you super powers.",
"To also add onto the other replies, it is not normal for DNA to change. At all. Most cases of changing DNA usually result in those specific cells turning cancerous. \n\nBased on the question itself, it suggests you don't have much of a science background.\n\nNote: In the case of organ transplants, the DNA of the donor doesn't change your DNA but, let's say a liver, still has the donors DNA. This is actually really troublesome because it often leads to organs being rejected by the body after several years even."
]
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[],
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99vhyv | how are purchases correctly identified as fraudulent by credit card companies when there is nothing “unusual” about them? | By nothing unusual, I mean a charge within a spender’s typical budget amount and relative location. This happened to me recently, and in discussing my relief with friends, they also mentioned having charges correctly flagged by credit card companies.
Conversely, if a person is traveling and a card doesn’t require travel notifications, how do the auto flags know those travel charges are legitimate? | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/99vhyv/eli5_how_are_purchases_correctly_identified_as/ | {
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"Kind of like data mining. Some companies will alert you if you buy something off a new website, or if the website is frequented by hackers. Let’s say you buy a bike online for $130. $130 isn’t that much money. However, people usually don’t order bikes off the internet. That’ll raise a red flag. And of course if there’s a pattern that’s a red flag as well. Hackers tend to either buy a bunch of little stuff in a short span of time, or a few expensive things in a longer period of time. So companies look for things like that, even though it could be normal. ",
"Typically other customers will have called in and reported a particular transaction as fraudulent, the bank will then have investigated to see if other customers are affected in the same way. For example Monzo recently kept seeing fraudulent transactions shortly after their customers used ticketmaster, and were able to alert customers and preemptively issue replacement cards.\n\n_URL_0_ ",
"I worked in a regulated industry and can provide a little bit of insight.\n\nIn a nutshell, it's all about data. Your personal activities are but one data point (one piece of sample data) from a collection of data spanning millions or even billions of transactions.\n\nAfter a while distinct patterns emerge in that data and analyzed to determine when fraud is present (and given a score) , your individual spending pattern is only a very small part of it a very big picture. some times the pattern is introduced from transactions that happen from known stolen cards, like a script that tries to validate card numbers, or simply the terminal ID of the transaction source (the cc machine on the store counter) could be suspect. Or even simply by location and type of use (there is a card test that uses a card to buy something on amazon and sends to a random address). \n\nAt the end of the day, there could be millions of data points that contribute to scoring a fraudulent purchase or activity as a hit and then the system compares it against other factors at a large scale, comes up with a final score and then flags accordingly. \n\nThe systems are mind numbingly accurate and get more accurate every day. The data collection system I worked with had an accuracy rate in detecting fraud across a sample set of over 100 million transactions a year that was only incorrect in its scoring system less than a dozen times, all but 2 were false negatives (meaning the fraudster got away with it twice before that hole closed).\n\nI don't know if that was ELI5 worthy, but it was as generic as I could make it. Also on mobile, so sorry if my sentences are a mess"
]
} | [] | [] | [
[],
[
"https://monzo.com/blog/2018/06/28/ticketmaster-breach/"
],
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|
doksei | how does popcorn lose calories when it pops? | Every bag of microwave popcorn I've seen always shows something along the lines of 200 cals/serving unpopped and 50 cals/serving popped. How is this possible? | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/doksei/eli5_how_does_popcorn_lose_calories_when_it_pops/ | {
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"The serving size for popcorn is probably in cups, and popped corn is much less dense than the unpopped kernels. Lesser kernels in the same amount of space = less calories.\n\nEdit: grammar",
"A calorie is a unit of heat; specifically one calorie is the amount of heat required to raise one gram of water one degree Celsius. When your body digests food think of it as”burning calories. Let’s say a piece of bread is 100 calories. If you toast the bread, it may be now only 90 calories because you literally burned part of it.\n\nIf you ever wondered how the caloric content of food is determined, it is literally by burning it. Let’s say i wanted to know the calories in a BigMac. I buy one from my local McD, and freeze dry it. Then I place it in a device called a calorimeter, which is a combustion chamber with a gas flame surrounded by a water jacket. Pop in the freeze dried Big Mac, completely burn it, measure the temperature rise in the water jacket, deduct the temperature rise from the gas flame and the result is calories. Simple process.",
"It's simply a difference in serving size. In this example below, it says 150 calories per serving unpopped, 30 calories per cup popped.\n\n1 serving unpopped is 2 tbsp, which produces 5.25 cups poppped. But the popped calories is per **cup**, which is about 1/5 of 5.25 cups. That's why the popped calories is only 1/5 the unpopped.\n\nTBH, it's a dumb way to show the facts.\n\nSome other answers suggested that calories are lost when the corn is popped, but that is a small amount, not 4 to 5 times!\n\n_URL_0_"
]
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[],
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[
"https://i.imgur.com/2neBq0k.png"
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|
73nyix | how did bangladesh come about | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/73nyix/eli5how_did_bangladesh_come_about/ | {
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"From the 19th century it was part of British India. \n\nWhen India gained independence from Britain it was split in two, broadly along religious lines. The mainly Hindu parts became India and the mainly Muslim parts became Pakistan.\n\nPakistan was in two disconnected parts, East and West Pakistan. West Pakistan was the dominant part and despite sharing a religion was quite different culturally from the east.\n\nEventually a war broke out and, with the help of India, East Pakistan gained independence and became Bangladesh."
]
} | [] | [] | [
[]
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||
dvvisg | what exactly are my cable modem and router doing in the minute after being reset? | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/dvvisg/eli5_what_exactly_are_my_cable_modem_and_router/ | {
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"text": [
"Booting. \nThey both run some form of linux. And, frankly, neither will have many hampsters under the hood CPU wise for computing power (you don't need a massive CPU for essentially packet shovelling), so booting up - even a stripped down embedded version like these will have - an operating system takes some time. Then they have to launch whatever routing/modem control services, firewall services, DHCP and DNS services, and then the little webservers that provided your admin/control app. \n\nThe OS kernel itself is probably booted up in under 20 seconds, the rest of the junk can take upwards of a minute.",
"Analogy time - imagine you are opening an sandwich shop for the day. You unlock the shop and switch on the lights. Are you now ready to flip the closed sign to open and start serving customers? Probably not. You may still need to switch on the cash register, maybe warm the oven, defrost some stuff on the fridge, mop the floor, prepare your display cabinet, etc.\n\nIn router/modem terms (general computing devices), before the devices are ready to perform its job (such as to receive electrical signals from a wire and send them to the correct devices on your wireless network), it needs to do some setup first, such as loading the instructions of the wireless communication algorithm from disk to memory, or detecting which devices it can connect and route to, etc (“exact” steps are too complex and varies by product). \n\nAll these takes time because it takes time to read and write data to a disk, perform calculations with the CPU and read/writing to its memory. Sometimes it takes times only because it is waiting for a response from the network, eg checking if you are a valid customer. It may execute very fast but the millions of instructions and steps add up to significant microseconds."
]
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4kmuf2 | how much would a bullet have to travel to do no damage to a human, or for us to catch it. | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/4kmuf2/eli5how_much_would_a_bullet_have_to_travel_to_do/ | {
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"Depends how fast it started out at, and all of its ballistic characteristics. Generally though it's going to be lethal at any distance it can reach in the air.",
"Pretty sure the only way to catch a bullet between gun and ground in normal earth conditions would be to shoot it straight up and catch it when stops moving upwards and starts moving downwards. The problem is that traveling (air resistance) is only one of the forces at work. You also have to contend with gravity. By the time air resistance has the bullet slow enough, the bullet will have also reached the downward speed as if it had been dropped from a plane. "
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||
mi89h | how tv channels work | how do they profit , through adds?
and do they need to pay royalties to show movies...? | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/mi89h/eli5_how_tv_channels_work/ | {
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"Different channels make $ in different ways. \nHome Shopping Networks actually pay cable/satelite carriers to be on their lineup. Some networks like ESPN charge a premium to the Cab/Sat providers because people demand their content (plus sellling ads). HBO(and the like) make most all of their money off of Cab/Sat subscriptions. Broadcast stations & networks make their $ by selling Ad space as it's generally revenue neutral for the Cab/Sat agreement.\nYes to the royalties... it's why you see older/crappier movies on 'lesser' channels, it's a lot cheaper to license.\n",
"Different channels make $ in different ways. \nHome Shopping Networks actually pay cable/satelite carriers to be on their lineup. Some networks like ESPN charge a premium to the Cab/Sat providers because people demand their content (plus sellling ads). HBO(and the like) make most all of their money off of Cab/Sat subscriptions. Broadcast stations & networks make their $ by selling Ad space as it's generally revenue neutral for the Cab/Sat agreement.\nYes to the royalties... it's why you see older/crappier movies on 'lesser' channels, it's a lot cheaper to license.\n"
]
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[],
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] |
|
20u7ud | what is happening since antibiotics are going to stop working for us? | Also I have never been on antibiotics, which might contribute to me not getting it, even thought I know what antibiotics is. | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/20u7ud/eli5_what_is_happening_since_antibiotics_are/ | {
"a_id": [
"cg6r7um"
],
"score": [
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"text": [
"The problem is... evolution. We've used antibiotics so much that, if things continue, only antibiotic-resistant germs will survive and reproduce. We can keep coming up with new antobiotics, but the cycle will just keep repeating unless we manage to find something that kills 100% of all germs... not easy to do without killing the person too."
]
} | [] | [] | [
[]
] |
|
4mciru | why do females ejaculate during intercourse? | Uh, yea. as an adult i still don't know why females have to ejaculate. Men do it because of sperm and pregnancy and all but, why do women do it to? sheesh embarrasing question | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/4mciru/eli5why_do_females_ejaculate_during_intercourse/ | {
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"text": [
"Actually, I think this is a really good question.\n\n[The Truth About Female Ejaculation](_URL_0_)\n\n > Since 2000, an increasing number of researchers have suggested the liquid may come from the Skene's glands, which are located on the anterior wall of the vagina around the lower end of the urethra. But the truth is we simply don’t know where ejaculate comes from and it’s something that doctors and researchers will continue to study and learn more about over the coming years.\n\n > As far as the amount of ejaculate, a woman can release as little as a teaspoonful or a capful, yet some claim to “squirt” a great deal more than that. Some studies suggest that all women ejaculate when they reach orgasm, but instead of the fluid being released from the vagina, it is pushed back up into the bladder when the muscles are tightened post-climax. Hence, some women might experience retrograde ejaculate, while others ejaculate outside the body.\n\n[Here's where female ejaculation comes from, and what it's made of](_URL_1_)\n\nHope this helps.",
"It's a happy accident of evolution. It doesn't have a functional reason as far as we're aware, which is probably why it only happens in some women, some of the time. Just when you orgasm, everything contracts down there and all the glands that are normally providing lubrication (and also the bladder) can be squeezed, thereby expelling fluid.\n\nYou can read all the science of it in [this paper](_URL_0_), including the difference between squirting and female ejaculation.",
"Females don't \"have\" to ejaculate. In fact, I would say few do. I'm the only one of my friends that does. For me, everything starts swelling when I am aroused and it sort of presses on my \"female prostrate\" until I can't hold it any longer. I know that doesn't actually answer you question of why physically... But just some insight. "
]
} | [] | [] | [
[
"http://www.everydayhealth.com/sexual-health/dr-laura-berman-truth-about-female-ejaculation.aspx",
"http://www.sciencealert.com/here-s-where-female-ejaculation-comes-from-and-what-it-s-made-of"
],
[
"https://www.researchgate.net/profile/Zlatko_Pastor/publication/236601214_Female_Ejaculation_Orgasm_vs._Coital_Incontinence_A_Systematic_Review/links/53d4c6bf0cf220632f3d1773.pdf"
],
[]
] |
|
2yewnw | if we saw something happen 10 light years away and then switched lenses to 9.99 years could we watch it again? | So what I mean is, a lens that can see up to 10 ly, and then switch to a lens that could only see 9. In a year could I see the same thing? | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/2yewnw/eli5if_we_saw_something_happen_10_light_years/ | {
"a_id": [
"cp8vbmc"
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"score": [
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"text": [
"That's not how that works at all. 10 light years is the distance light travels in 10 years in a vacuum. Once the light reaches us, that's it, it's not like it's an instant replay on TV that you can rewind. "
]
} | [] | [] | [
[]
] |
|
beii9g | how does the youtube 'recommend' work? | I've been noticing recently that some videos in my recommend are also appearing in other people's recommends (based on the comments), as we are all flocking to the same video at the same time (even if it is not a new video). Why/how are random videos entering people's recommend algorithms at the same time? | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/beii9g/eli5_how_does_the_youtube_recommend_work/ | {
"a_id": [
"el64zkk"
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"score": [
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"text": [
"Exactly how it work is kept secret by google to make it harder to manipulate.\n\nA part of how it work depend in correlation between you and other people. If you and another person both have watched the same videos and the perhaps given the same a thumbs up you can guess that the inrest is similar. So when the other people give a new video on a the same subject a thumbs up or just watch all of it that indicate that you likely are interested in the same video.\n\n A old video can popup because people stated to watch it now for some reson perhaps because someone in there own video linked to it or it was used in a external article and that drow a lot of traffic to it.\n\nGoogle also used automatic system to analyse the videos and it can give you auto generates subtitles so thy try to determine what the content is and automatically match it to other videos.\n\nSo the algoritm is secret and changes all the time to and changes so it is harder to game the system and inject auto generated video that is there just to get money from initial advertisement but people do not like"
]
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|
2dliry | why is bottled water often more expensive than coke (or other fizzy drinks) which, as well as containing water, contain lots of ingredients which need to be bought and paid for while water is just, water? | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/2dliry/eli5why_is_bottled_water_often_more_expensive/ | {
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"text": [
"Supply and demand. There is a higher demand for clean, good tasting, portable water than there is for soda. As such it can command a higher price. The additional ingredients and manufacturing for soda just means that the profit margin is smaller.",
"When you buy a bottle of Coke, it comes from a local bottling plant. Coke only has to ship a very highly concentrated syrup containing the flavor across the country & somebody adds water to it locally & then distributes it to stores. Many bottled waters come out of the same factories - they just don't bother adding anything to the water.\n\nIf you want a 'special' bottled water those have to be bottled at a single location and then shipped all around the world. Shipping is expensive, water is heavy & Evian has to come all the way from France.\n\nThen there's always the idiot factor. If you put a fancy label & a high price tag on some tap water, you can probably get people to buy it because they just assume that the more expensive product is higher quality.",
"Bottling plans use a lot of water. As a result of extreme volume, they get a discount. That is why if you are about to die of dehydration in Mexico, it's cheaper to buy a Coke than an equal amount of regularly bottled water. \n\nAlso, bottled water is seen as a lower demand product which is somehow fancy. Think about it, you're too good to drink from a tap, and you're paying money for water in a bottle... of course they are going to hit you with high prices. You're freaking rich.",
"It's a scam, get a water bottle.",
"Any item is only worth as much as people are willing to pay, and most people won't pay too much for a quick snack, but people who are thirsty (or tourists who don't understand the value of the currency) don't mind the price tag, and don't forgot the ooo-fancy-tag-and-high-price effect, which states that people assume the generous corporations are only charging so much because their item is of the best quality."
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67vo47 | why will the new tax plan work/not work? | [deleted] | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/67vo47/eli5why_will_the_new_tax_plan_worknot_work/ | {
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"OK. So taxes are required to pay for government services. There are 2 ways to increase government revenue, you can increase the % that people pay in tax (through the elimination of deductions and credits or simply raising the rates) or you can increase the tax base. The tax base is the income that people pay taxes on. \n\nFor example. Say the government finds some magical policy that doubles everyone's income tomorrow. That policy will make everyone richer, but will also help the government because as incomes rise so too does tax revenue. \n\nOne of the basic tenants of the republican party is something called supply side economics, trickle down economics or Reaganomics. The basic idea is that if you cut the tax rate, corporations and individuals will spend that money on other economic activity that that economic activity will generate profits and incomes that then get taxed. The tax cut effectively increases the tax base enough to offset the tax cut. \n\nThere is evidence that this does not actually happen. However many people on the right still believe in it. In addition, many of those people don't think the government should be as large as it is (they think it should provide fewer services) and therefore want to cut its revenue as a way to cut its services. \n\nA third factor is that these same people tend to believe that the individual knows better how to spend their own money to better the individual than the government does. Therefore the individual should be more in charge of their own money. People on the left would argue that the individual will spend the money to better only themselves. Governments role is to spend the money for the betterment of everyone, so the individual's money is more effectively put to use for the collective good by the government. \n\nAt any rate. Republicans tend to heavily favor tax cuts. So that's what Trump's tax plan is, it's a tax cut. This tax cut will favor the wealthy, they will receive more benefit from it than the poor will. While republicans argue that increased growth will pay for the tax cuts, most people think that there will need to be corresponding cuts in services to pay for the tax cuts. \n\nThere are a few issues here. First is that the president is not authorized to write or pass laws. That's the job of the house. So while the president can put some ideas forward it's up to the house to turn those ideas into actual policies and rules. Trump's plan is a 1-page document with some ideas on it, not really a plan in any kind of real sense. "
]
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246mmk | why do i hear non-existant noices when it's quiet? | It can be from games I play from time to time, for example. I guess there can be some kind of "You're used to the sound" explanation, but it still seems pretty odd.
Edit: To clarify, I can differ from "real" noices and non-existant ones. If I focus on a sound which isn't really there, I can't hear it anymore. It's like I *pretend* it's there without being aware of it until I try to be aware of it. | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/246mmk/eli5_why_do_i_hear_nonexistant_noices_when_its/ | {
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9o822y | why do some terminal patients appear to show a marked improvement toward the end, within days of ultimately succumbing (especially cancer patients)? | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/9o822y/eli5_why_do_some_terminal_patients_appear_to_show/ | {
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"The term for it is \"Terminal lucidity\" and we don't have a great grasp of why it happens. The explanation I've heard is that it is the body burning everything it has to keep going, effectively spending all of its reserves to return to something closer to regular operation. Once those reserves run out, the person dies.",
"One common reason is that sometimes patients are started on steroids by palliative care doctors. This can often make a marked difference in quality of life, improving energy levels, reducing nausea etc. and can really help patients who were previously functionally limited",
"Chemotherapy drugs are really hard on the body. Basically they kill all cells that happen to be currently dividing, and hope that the rapidly dividing cancer dies before the drug kills you. If the cancer becomes hopelessly advanced to the point where death is inevitable, most patients will elect to stop treatment. They will briefly \"improve\" because the awful side effects of the chemo go away, but ultimately the cancer will kill them.",
"This is apparently a common part of the death process, my grandma’s hospice gave us a little pamphlet that explained how sometimes the person will suddenly have a really good day, almost like back to their old selves, just before they pass away. They were right. You would barely have known she had Alzheimer’s that day, she sat up and ate and visited with us. I think it turned out to be her second to last. ",
"There is the expression, Swan Song, in which the swan sings a lovely song before it dies. It’s that last surge of a beautiful life."
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ct31dy | why do people smoke and not just wear nicotine patches, which don't cause harm to your lungs? | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/ct31dy/eli5_why_do_people_smoke_and_not_just_wear/ | {
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"People become addicted not just to the nicotine, but to other aspects of smoking: the feeling of smoke in the lungs, the taste of the tobacco, the ritual of \"lighting up\", etc.",
"Smoking actively feels good. The patch leaks nicotine into your system, which can help curb cravings, but doesn’t feel like anything. It’s a tool to help you quit, it’s not an event like smoking is.",
"Interestingly enough, one of the factors that determines the addictiveness/\"likability\" of a substance is the speed at which it exerts its effect. Patches need about 4 hours to reach the maximum concentration in the blood. When you smoke a cigarette, it takes about 5 minutes. Smoking delivers the drug at a much faster rate which causes a stronger effect and makes it a more \"likable\" delivery system.",
"I only smoked in college (I'm nearing 40 years of age, so it's been a long while.), but I can say that part of the addiction is ritual. It's something you do regularly like eating or sleeping and it becomes so ingrained in your daily lifestyle that not doing it feels bizarre. Other reasons are:\n\n1. Smoking is a social activity and many people who do it enjoy the companionship of others who also partake. It's a really easy way to make friends. Yes, there are healthier ways to make friends. But for introverts or those with social anxiety, it serves as an easy conversation starter. My best friends in college were the people I met at our designated smoking area on campus. People bummed smokes from one another all the time. I would bum and then let others bum from me.\n2. It's an excellent timeout/meditative activity that gives you a reason for standing outside. My brain was overwhelmed and anxious in college and smoking really helps alleviate a lot of that. No, it doesn't solve world problems. However, not even taking the nicotine into account, smoking is a naturally meditative experience, especially when done alone. Meditation often focuses on breathing exercises - which is exactly what smoking does. It forces you to consider how you're breathing in. That, in and of itself, is incredibly calming. Later on, it's not just the breathing but the feeling of smoke going into your lungs which feels good.\n3. Smoking is a reward. I would work my butt off in college on term papers or studying and give myself goals like, \"Once I've made it past this point I'm having a cigarette.\" It's strange, looking back, to note how much more motivated I was and how integral smoking was to my success. I graduated with a 3.97 GPA and absolutely believe this is because I smoked. That said, I think smoking is a nasty, foul-smelling, unhealthy habit. However, if there were a healthy option I'd still be doing it and not for the nicotine.\n4. Oral fixations are a very real thing and some people are natural fidgeters. I, myself, possess both of these traits. Back in the day, I had a tongue piercing barbell that I couldn't keep myself from rolling back and forth along the bottom of my lip. It used to drive my Mother crazy. Smoking solves both of these problems really easily. The oral part is obvious. The cigarette gives you something to do with your hands. From flicking to tapping and rolling between the fingers - cigarettes are a fidgeters best friend.\n5. And when you don't take any of the previously mentioned reasons into account, there's still the most obvious reason. Smoking is more socially acceptable despite it's health-risks than meditating at work, or using a fidget device at work, or just about any other activity you can do AT work to relieve stress. Smokers, whether they'd like to admit it or not, seem to eek out more breaks at work than non-smokers. I'm not saying this is true at places like Wal-Mart. But, as I've worked in computer repair and IT departments - smokers find a way to \"step out for a quick smoke break\" more often than their counterparts. This is most definitely a problem of how smoking is perceived, how poor work conditions are, and that people are regularly overworked. I'm a big believer that if people took more breaks during a work-day they'd be more productive, which shouldn't come as a surprise given how much my smoke breaks helped me through college."
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2gjuls | i know how a rainbow is formed...but what determines the size of the arch or 'circumference' of it? | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/2gjuls/eli5_i_know_how_a_rainbow_is_formedbut_what/ | {
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"ELI4: how are rainbows formed?",
"The main rainbow appears 42 degrees away from the point opposite the sun, i.e., 138 degrees away from the sun. (The angle is determined by the way light from the sun is reflected and refracted inside water drops.) The nearer the sun is to the horizon, the higher the arch will appear.",
"I think the issue here is that rainbows don't have much of a circumference, they're not projected onto the sky where everyone sees them. They're reflected from the raindrops into your eye [like so](_URL_0_). The angle between colours makes it looks the size it does (even though it only exists in your eye). I could be wrong but i think the arch shape is because raindrops are circular.",
"Tan42 degrees * (distance to rainbow) = (radius of the rainbow)\n\nSince all (primary) rainbows are the same size in your field of vision, their size is simply determined by your distance away from the reflecting water droplets in the sky.\n\nStretch out your arms, and point one hand to the center of the rainbow and the other to an \"end\" of the rainbow (doesn't matter which \"end\"!).\n\nThe angle between your arms is about 42 degrees.\n\nThis angle of 42 degrees will be the same for a nearby sprinkler rainbow as for a rainbow in the distant mountains.\n\nUsing Trig, this means droplets that reflect a rainbow 1 meter away will appear to have a circumference of 1.8 meters.\n\nIf the raindrops are 1km away, the circumference will appear to be 1.8km wide.\n\n10km away, the circumference will appear to be 18 km wide.\n\n(Double check me guys!)",
"try [this](_URL_0_) explanation",
"Cool thread. Ok, what's the explanation for DOUBLE rainbows?",
"Professor Walter Lewin at MIT gives an amazing explanation of this. Here's the video: _URL_0_",
"A rainbow is in effect a \"cone shape\" that converges at the viewer's location, correct? ",
"Here is a nice image Descartes drew to explain why you see the primary and secondary rainbows where you do. The circle represents the raindrop and the lines the path the light takes from the sun to your eye.\n\n[Drawing here](_URL_0_)",
"What determines it is the wavelength of the light, as well as the material that refracts the light. Since we're talking about rainbows here, that material is always water droplets, so that's that. On to the other part:\n\n > ELI5: Wavelength? Coloured light?\n\nPhysicists are still in an eternal discussion whether light travels in a wave or in a particle. In many cases, the wave theory works best, and colour is just such a case. So for simplicity's sake: Light travels in the form of a wave.\n\nThe colour of a wave is determined by the frequency, i.e. how many waves fit inside a fixed time frame. Wavelength is another way to describe how long the waves are. The wavelength is the physical length of one of these waves. For visible light, these lengths are pretty short (think in the order of hundreds of nanometres). The colour is determined by the exact length of the cocktail of waves. White light is a cocktail of all colours of light that can be produced and seen. Black light is none. Red has the longest of wavelengths of all basic colours, Violet the shortest. Infrared light (i.e. heat radiation) is longer than red, and Ultraviolet (UV radiation) is shorter than violet (hence the ultra part). Brown, reddish purple and pink shouldn't really exist, but they can be kinda explained by being a weird cocktail of the wavelengths.\n\nDifferent wavelengths reflect at different angles due to the behaviour of the waves when it's reflected or refracted by a lens, like what happens in a raindrop. As a result, the light leaves the water droplets at slightly different angles, which causes the rainbows we all love to see.",
"in order for a rainbow to be formed, your angle to the sun, with the raindrop as a reflective surface has to be 42 degees.\n\n_URL_0_\n\nthat means, that the distance to the reflective ~~plain~~ plane (i.e. waterdroplets in the atmosphere) determines how big the arch is, while your position relative to the sun and the reflective ~~plain~~ plane determines how much of it you see.\n\nlong story short: how big a rainbow appears to be, depends on where exactly youre standing, and where the water droplets are, or more specifically the distance between the two. the further you are apart from the water droplets, the bigger the \"virtual size\" of the arch.\n\nedit: spelling (marked in the text)",
"What determines the distance of the rainbow? How about multiple rainbows? Are they just different cross-sections of the same 42° cone?",
"I may not get 700 points like jaa101 did for not even answering the question, but here goes...\n\nThe size and, therefore, the circumference of a rainbow is determined by how far the water droplets or rain are from you. If you do it right you can literally reach out and touch the rainbow.\n\nAnyone with a water hose which has a mist setting can see this for themselves.\n\nThe red comes from a slightly different angle than the orange, which is coming from a slightly different angle than the yellow, et cetera. 42 degrees is an approximation and a simplification of the reality you are witnessing.",
"Alright. So after reading this stuff, is it possible that on a certain day, with the sun perfectly over the horizon and a raincloud just perfect, there could be a super rainbow? One that encapsolates the entire moon/sky? ",
"It's determined by the Sun's position in the sky. If you pay attention, you will notice that the shadow of your head is right in the center of the arch.",
"Well, of course it's the angels. The angels between the sun and the rain create this beautiful prismatic effect, and it appears different depending on the angels between you and the rain as well.\n\nWait, no...\n\nAngles. I meant angles."
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2gov9b | no. 2 pencils | Whats so special about them? Why are No. 2 pencils only allowed on tests? | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/2gov9b/eli5_no_2_pencils/ | {
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"The various grades of pencil lead denote hardness. Harder pencils make a lighter mark; softer ones make a darker mark, but tend to smudge very easily. No.2 (aka HB) lead tends to make a nice dark mark and not smudge too badly. The scanner that are used to grade bubble tests are calibrated to read those marks.",
"You can take tests with other pencils, it's just more likely that the grading machine may not pick up the mark/the mark will smudge into other bubbles. ",
"No. 2, while the \"standard\" for writing pencils, is not actually standardized except on a per-manufacturer basis. So a No. 2 Palomino will be quite dark and soft compared to a No. 2 Staedtler Norica.\n\nI have heard of some test monitors refusing HB pencils, even though that's the equivalent of a No. 2, so you may want to be careful of that too. Just for further interest, the \"HB\" measure is \"Hard, Black\"; darker, softer grades are multiples of B, so 2B, 3B, etc., up to as high as 9B. For H it works the same. A few makers have an \"F\" rating between HB and H, for \"firm\"."
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2u8nzk | why is it okay to kill animals, but wrong to have sex with them? | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/2u8nzk/eli5_why_is_it_okay_to_kill_animals_but_wrong_to/ | {
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"Personally I'd rather die then get raped by animals. In some places if you are caught doing it the punishment is death. I think it's because its fucked up and inhumane. Killing animals is also bad and frowned upon but we do it anyway for resources. "
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28qm87 | how is german the closest language to english? | When looking or hearing German, it doesn't seem anything like English at all. I know a bit of Spanish, and there are many cognates and similarities to English across the entire language. I don't actually know any German, but German seems to be much further away than Spanish in this regard. How is it then that they are in the same family (both being Germanic languages), while Spanish is in an entirely different family? | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/28qm87/eli5_how_is_german_the_closest_language_to_english/ | {
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"Try [Scots](_URL_1_) then [Fresian](_URL_0_) as the closest languages to English.",
"Like Antimutt said, there are languages that are closer to English than German.\n\nBut German and English have a common ancestor language, in the same way Spanish and French do. Prior to about 1500 years ago, the groups that went on to speak English and the groups that went on to speak German were speaking the same language.\n\nEnglish looks very different, though, mostly due to some really rapid change that happened while the Norman French were ruling England. The structure of the language changed, and we picked up a lot of words from them (which is why there are a lot of cognates with Spanish), and also separately from Latin over the centuries, since for a long time it was a language that most educated people knew.",
"**Answer:** English isn't \"the closest\" language to modern German in terms of how it sounds or reads. Rather, both are [\"Germanic\" languages](_URL_0_), meaning that, to make a biology analogy, they share a sort of \"common ancestor.\" \n \n**Analogy:** Think about the Romance Languages as fish, Modern German as a bear, and English as a leopard seal. Sure, leopard seals have \"fins\"---and a \"tail\" instead of legs---and they live in the sea. But leopard seals are still mammals, and more closely related to bears than to fish. \n \n**Explanation:** For historical reasons I don't understand well, English takes a lot of words from Greek and Latin as compared to actual German, which is partly why there are so many cognates with the Romance languages. Unlike with biological evolution, it is easier for languages to incorporate features of other less closely \"related\" languages---like words and sentence structure---which explains some of the other similarities. \n\n",
"Language 'families' are similar to real families in that you can have closer and more distant relatives. You say that Spanish and German are in different families. That is true in one sense, but in another they are part of the same family, that of Indo-European (along with almost every European language). So that's the first thing.\n\nIf you knew a bit more German, you'd find lots of similarities between German and English. There are too many to give an exhaustive list, but one example might be the word 'king', which has much more to do with the German word 'koenig' than the Latin root 'rex' (which is where you get the French 'roi' and Spanish 'rey'). The English word 'flesh' has more to do with the German word for meat (Fleisch) than the Latin 'caro', which is where you get the Spanish 'carne'.\n\nFinally, English derives heavily from German because it was a load of German tribes (Angles, Saxons and Jutes) that come to Britain after the Romans left, bringing their language with them (hence: Anglo-Saxon). That said, this was the first of many mass migrations to the island, each of which brings its own language. When the Normans invaded in 1066, English was injected with a load of French. With the British Empire in the early modern period (and beyond), English started picking up languages from the Indian subcontinent, the Caribbean, and the South Pacific (among other places). Call English a 'Germanic' language doesn't tell the whole story.\n\nTL;DR:\n1. All European languages are part of the same family.\n2. German and English have many, many similarities.\n3. English is more than just a 'Germanic' language.",
" > How is it then that they are in the same family (both being Germanic languages), while Spanish is in an entirely different family?\n\nAll three languages you mentioned (English, German and Spanish) are in the same family of languages. This family is called the \"Indo-European\" language family. \n\nOld English and Old German were much more similar to each other than Modern English and Modern German are. In the little more 1000 years, both languages have developed differently. \n\nEnglish developed on an island and after the Norman French conquest of 1066, English absorbed much vocabulary from the Norman French language. By the time Middle English appears (about 700 years ago), it is very different from Old English. \n\nIn Germany, the many hundreds of different German dialects continue to develop as there was no standard German language since Germany did not become one country until 1871. Likewise, German never had a strong Latin language influence, which English had. \n\nBy modern times, we have English (the most Romanised Germanic language) and a standard version of German. Of all the Germanic languages, German, Dutch and Afrikaans are somewhat similar, Swedish, Norwegian, Danish are quite similar, Icelandic and the Faroe Islands language are old versions of Norwegian and Frisian is somewhat close to the Scandinavian languages while being close to Dutch. \n\nWe could put English with the Scandinavian languages, since much English grammar is still similar to Scandinavian grammar.",
"Languages being related does not suggest any mutual intelligibility. Look at Finnish and Hungarian for another good example.\n\nBy the way, German is not English's closest relative. Languages said to be more similar are Scots, Frisian, and Dutch.",
"It actually is extremely similar. Some words are even exactly the same, or sound the same. \n\nFor example, hand is \"hand\" foot is \"fuss\" angel is \"engel\" morning is \"morgen\" also for family members, you have the mutter, the sohn, the vater and the schwester making up the familie, can you take a guess how those translate to English? ",
"german isnt. frisian is.",
"English and German have really similar words and they share the same ancestor.\n\nSpanish isn't closer to English than German."
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c11jog | how and why does the time of the day affect our emotions? | Like we tend to feel negative emotions strongly at night while during the day we tend to have a more optimistic outlook. | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/c11jog/eli5_how_and_why_does_the_time_of_the_day_affect/ | {
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"At night, you're tired and ready to call it a day. You let your guard down which opens you up to those kinds of thoughts and feelings. You aren't required to be alert in bed like you are during the day at work or school.",
"Because your your circadian clock effects hormones and other chemicals in your body. get these chemicals out of wack, and it can effect anything from mood to health.",
"A lot of it revolves around the sun. The sun releases hormones in your brain including serotonin, a hormone that regulates mood. It's why you feel crappy on overcast/winter days.",
"There's a hormone your body produces called cortisol. This does a LOT of things, but importantly, when there's plenty of it, it makes you feel like you're more energetic, which often corresponds with mood. Your cortisol levels change throughout the day, with their highest levels in the late morning & their lowest levels at midnight/in the early hours of the morning. This is also very noticeable in people with depression: they often feel significantly worse in the mornings. This won't be the only reason that the time of day affects one's emotions, but it probably is one."
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1pwdu6 | when i boot up my computer or console, it makes a "beep" sound. but it's not coming from the speakers. what does that sound? | There definetly isn't a speaker inside of my computer. I wondered this since forever. | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/1pwdu6/eli5_when_i_boot_up_my_computer_or_console_it/ | {
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"There usually IS a very small single speaker inside the computer. It is usually no wider than an American dime, with one plug that goes directly into the motherboard. It beeps probably to test itself and make sure it works. The mini speaker itself is used to beep error codes, in case your computer malfunctions.",
"That comes from the so called POST or \"power on self-test\".\n\nIf your machine passes the POST or POSTs as most people call it, it will give of one long beep. \n\nHowever if your computer fails that POST it will give of some other series of long and short beeps. If you write down the sequence of beeps you can then look up what that means in terms of your mother board.\n\nThis is designed to help debug problems where the computer will not boot up even enough to run any further tests.",
" > There definetly isn't a speaker inside of my computer.\n\nYes there is. It looks something like [this](_URL_0_).",
"Thank you for the answers! Also nice stories!",
"There is a little speaker in there. It used to be a real 2\" paper cone speaker, and used to be uses for basic game audio, since it is driven from a simple sound generator, that can be run at the BIOS level by simple code. A sound card usually cannot be accessed that early.\n\nSince the popularity of sound cards, it has become relegated to an error indicator with a disc diaphragm, to give that one beep to let you know BIOS is working. or a beep pattern if something is wrong.\n",
"There is a speaker inside your computer, it's called the PC Speaker. Computers have had this for 35 years at least. \n\nIn the days before computers typically had sound cards, the PC Speaker would produce all the sound and music for games. Obviously the sound quality left a lot to be desired.\n\nYou should be able to find it, by listening, it will be connected to your motherboard by a small 4-prong plug that has 2 wires going into it (usually red and black).\n",
"Finally a question I could answer fully and completely and I arrive to late. Oh well. "
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10eb9n | - baseball standings | How can you be half a game behind the leader? What is a wildcard spot, and why is it seemingly so coveted? Most other sports are pretty straightforward, but baseball standings are full of all sorts of weird little things that make it a mystery to me. | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/10eb9n/eli5_baseball_standings/ | {
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"First off, there's 2 leagues (National and American) each with 3 divisions. To make it to the playoffs, a team must either win its division or win one of two (per league) wildcard spots. \n\nThe wildcard spots are reserved for teams that don't win their division, but are the best of the remaining teams in the league. The reason why you hear so much about them is because there are many more teams competing for only 2 spots. In a division there are usually 2 or 3 teams that are in contention to actually win the division. So out of 2-3 teams with good records only 1 team will get the automatic playoff berth by winning the division, and the rest of the teams from all 3 divisions are thrown together in the wildcard, making it quite an interesting race. It's not \"coveted\" per say, but it is often more interesting to keep track of because the division winners are often decided a while before the playoffs actually start.\n\nHalf-games in the standings come from teams that haven't played the same number of games. For example: Two teams both with a record of 0-0 play each other. Team 1 wins and Team 2 loses. Team 1 is of course 1 game ahead in the standings. \n\n Games Behind\n Team 1 - 1-0 -\n Team 2 - 0-1 1\n\nLet's look at Team 2's Games Behind. A good way to think about it is that 1 less win OR 1 more loss puts you .5 games further behind. In this case there's one of each category, so 2*.5=1\n\nTeam 1 then plays Team 3, with Team 3 winning. Team 2 doesn't play at the same time. Current standings:\n\n Games Behind\n Team 3 - 1-0 -\n Team 1 - 1-1 .5\n Team 2 - 0-1 1\n\nTeam 1 and Team 3 each have 1 win, but Team 1 has 1 more loss, putting them .5 games back. Team 2 has 1 less win and 1 more loss, putting them 1 full game back.\n\nHope that made a little sense "
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c72jc1 | why do cinema screens look so clear if pixels stretch with bigger screens? | If you stretched a 4K TV to the same size as your average IMAX meaning more than 10x it's current width, wouldn't it look extremely pixelated? Is it because of the distance being much further away for a cinema viewing experience? | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/c72jc1/eli5_why_do_cinema_screens_look_so_clear_if/ | {
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"How pixellated a screen looks is based on how big each pixel looks to you. If each pixel takes up one millionth of your full field of vision, then it doesn't matter how big that pixel actually is. If you took an old and really low pixel count screen, and set it a hundred feet away, it would look just as pixellated as a really nice 4k screen ten feet away. The size of a pixel scales with your distance. If you're twice as far away, the pixel is one half the size.",
"If the projector is digital, then it's using a resolution that is set based on the distance between the projector and the screen so that the image is clear.\n\nIf it's a film projector, film doesn't have a resolution, so it shouldn't look blurry anyway."
]
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di284q | why does the door between my garage and my house slam harder when the garage door is open? | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/di284q/eli5_why_does_the_door_between_my_garage_and_my/ | {
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"Imagine your entire garage was overflowing with cotton balls. When you try to slam the interior door the cotton balls slow the door down. It doesn’t slam. \n\nWhen the garage door is open slamming the interior door works. This is because the cotton balls easily slide out the big garage door while you are slamming the interior door. \n\nAir is exactly like very light cotton balls.",
"It's because when your outside garage door is open, your inside door can push the air outside with little resistance. \nBut, when your outside for is closed, there is no where for that air to go and so it increases the sure pressure in the garage which tries to equalise with the air in your house resulting in some force pushing back on the door.",
"They probably meant air pressure with the submarine explanation.\n\nWhen the garage door is open and you slam the \"interior door\" the air from the outside comes in to replace air you just pushed inside the house from the garage.\n\nIf the garage door is closed then it takes longer for the air to get inside and fill the space, so the interior door will be harder to move. It will be harder to move because as it's closing it moves air from the garage to the inside of the house. The pressure will be temporarily higher on the inner side, because there is suddenly more air on that side, and less in the garage. This extra air inside the house pushes the inner door back, while the lack of air in the garage pulls it.\n\nIt takes time until the pressure balances out. ( normal amount of air both sides ) \n\nIf the garage door is open it happens quickly. If it's closed then more time is needed."
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dlu1bt | zippers? | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/dlu1bt/eli5_zippers/ | {
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"Strength comes in numbers. If you look at a zipper, the teeth are REALLY small and there are a lot of them. So any pressure against the zipper is divided and spread down to a much smaller force. \n\nHow do they work? Well if you look really closely at a few of the teeth, you’ll see that they have pits on one face of a tooth and a nub sticking out on the other side of the tooth. When the teeth come together at an angle within the slide pull, the nub nestles into the dimple. This also increases the surface area of contact which amplified the strength point above. The slide pull is designed to bring the two sides of teeth together at the right angle for the mesh to occur."
]
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||
157sk3 | why does mathematics always work? are there any other universal truths? | I've always been taught how to do math but I've never been taught why is works. I understand why it works with addition, subtraction, multiplication and division... it's simple observation and logical deduction. However, I don't understand why more complex mathematics such as algebra, trigonometry, and calculus works every time. I get very confused when you throw in fastballs such as imaginary numbers and undefined variables.
Are there any other universal truths that don't revolve around mathematics? | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/157sk3/why_does_mathematics_always_work_are_there_any/ | {
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" > However, I don't understand why more complex mathematics such as algebra, trigonometry, and calculus works every time.\n\nComplex mathematics are just the logical extension of simple mathematics. They work for exactly the same reasons that simple math does. It's the same observation and logical deduction process applied to much more challenging problems.",
"When calculus was invented, I'm pretty sure it was derived from more simple mathematics in order to model how things like acceleration, velocity and position relate to each other. \n\nThere are, however, a couple parts of math that are completely human designed and could work in many other ways if we wanted them to. For example, the way matrix multiplication works is completely arbitrary.\n\nBut most mathematics is just derived from simpler mathematics. New concepts like imaginary numbers come into being because we already had square roots, and if you take the square root of a negative number it doesn't work, but using this other mathematics we already have, it can be useful.",
"Semantic truths, tautologies, and a few other things are universally true.\n\nSemantic truth examples: \n\n\"No bachelors have girlfriends\"\n\n\"There are no square circles\"",
"Math doesn't \"work\" to address all problems.\n\nFor example, let's say that you walk into a room with `n` suitcases. In each suitcase is a cashier's check for $100k. Every time you open a suitcase, you keep the check. That is, except for one suitcase. One of those suitcases, if you open it, deals immediate and certain death (say it fills the room with a poisonous gas that you immediately and painlessly succumb to). What is the smallest `n` for which you would open one suitcase?\n\nYou can use math to help you understand the nature of this problem, but at the end of the day you cannot use math to give you an exact answer.\n\nFor instance, you can say, well, every weekday I drive to work. Each time I make that decision, I'm taking a small risk of death just by getting in the car. Certainly $100k is worth more to me than going to wherever I'm using the car to go on a given day, so if I choose `n` so that the risk of dying is the same as my daily commute, I would certainly open at least one suitcase.\n\nYou can also certainly figure out certain values of `n` for which you definitely wouldn't open a suitcase. For instance, if `n=10`, you probably wouldn't want to risk a 10% chance of dying just for $100k. That's a bad deal unless you're suicidal.\n\nYou can keep reasoning using math until you place `n` in a box, but at the end of that process, you'll probably find it's a pretty big box and `n` is somewhere between the hundreds and the hundreds of thousands.\n\nOnce you figure out your values of `n` that are \"definitely no\", \"definitely yes\", and \"maybe\", you can compare those to other people's values and probably make some interesting mathematical models. (Really, a better way to do it is to abstract the problem into a straight risk-reward curve where you can say straight up I'll accept `x` chance of death for `y` reward. This is a much better model to work with because it allows you to identify asymptotes–your \"definitely no\" number–and compare a much richer set of information to other people's chosen curves.)\n\nSo math can answer a great many questions, but you have to pose the right question. As I initially stated it, it's not a mathematically interesting question until you break it down a bit more and start to figure out what math *can* do for you."
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d8yqgf | understanding type 1 diabetes | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/d8yqgf/eli5_understanding_type_1_diabetes/ | {
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"Oh boy, this is a loaded set of questions. I'll try to break it down a bit...\n\nWhy test yourself multiple times a day?\n- The level of sugar in your blood changes throughout the day. It can change through the things you eat or drink, or how active you are. How stressed you are. If it gets too high or too low, you can get very sick and potentially die. Monitoring sugar (glucose) levels is necessary. \n\nWhat is A1C and what's the ideal level?\n- When there's a lot of sugar in your blood, it binds to specific parts of your blood (the hemoglobin). That sugary hemoglobin is A1C. The American Diabetes Association recommends a level below 53 mmol/mol. \n\nWhy are there so many different kinds of pumps?\n- Mostly marketing. Why are there different kinds of deodorant? Each pump may have something unique to it, but at the end of the day, an insulin pump delivers insulin and the features/functionality comes down to preference or ease of use. \n\nWhy are there different kinds of insulin?\n- This one is a little bit more complicated. Some insulins act quickly. Some take longer to kick in. Some last a long time. Some don't last very long. Which one that a diabetic person needs depends on how frequently and quickly their sugars tend to change. If their sugars aren't prone to changing quickly or suddenly, a long lasting insulin can keep them stable all day. If their sugars swing wildly, they may need something that acts more quickly. Every person is different, and often has a specialist following them to help find a particular setup that works for them."
]
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ji43o | why alcohol changes your emotions? | More specifically, why do different *types* of alcohol have different emotional effects on people? When someone says whiskey tends to make me angry, and rum makes me sad, why the difference? Is it psychological or chemical? Or both? | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/ji43o/eli5_why_alcohol_changes_your_emotions/ | {
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"Alcohol doesn't really change moods but it makes moods alreaady there stronger. It might also expose some hidden moods. Different alcohol makes people react differently because they've learned to have those expectations, not because of chemical differences. Someone might drink a particular drink when they're happy or sad and then start associating the drink with the emotional effects. ",
"I think it's probably psychological. A person has an experience with one alcohol and then associates the events with the liquor.\n\nI've seen some weird claims, such as Tequila acting as a stimulant, but I've never read any scientific evidence on that.\n\nI know Absinthe gets its reputation for the artist that used it. A lot of those artist had psychological problems to begin with, making it seem like the alcohol was \"hallucinatory.\" I've never actually tried it, but it seems like the effect of wormwood isn't what people expect it to be.\n\nIn general, from what I remember, alcohol has to do with the GABA brain receptor, which Benzo's also use. I'm trying to logically guess that it has something to do with motor functions, but it's been a while since I read up on it.\n\nI'll let this post serve as a placeholder since I'm not an expert. Just some basic background in psychology/biopsych.",
"Alcohol doesn't really change moods but it makes moods alreaady there stronger. It might also expose some hidden moods. Different alcohol makes people react differently because they've learned to have those expectations, not because of chemical differences. Someone might drink a particular drink when they're happy or sad and then start associating the drink with the emotional effects. ",
"I think it's probably psychological. A person has an experience with one alcohol and then associates the events with the liquor.\n\nI've seen some weird claims, such as Tequila acting as a stimulant, but I've never read any scientific evidence on that.\n\nI know Absinthe gets its reputation for the artist that used it. A lot of those artist had psychological problems to begin with, making it seem like the alcohol was \"hallucinatory.\" I've never actually tried it, but it seems like the effect of wormwood isn't what people expect it to be.\n\nIn general, from what I remember, alcohol has to do with the GABA brain receptor, which Benzo's also use. I'm trying to logically guess that it has something to do with motor functions, but it's been a while since I read up on it.\n\nI'll let this post serve as a placeholder since I'm not an expert. Just some basic background in psychology/biopsych."
]
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116uko | is white a color? is black a color? is grey a color? | I don't really get why white should not be a color. People say it is to be explained with light. However, get a black piece of paper in a lighted room. Get a white pencil and draw a circle. Now you have a white circle. Do the same experiment with the lights out (In a dark room). The circle will still be white and identical in color as the circle drawn in the lighted room. So why is white still not a color? | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/116uko/is_white_a_color_is_black_a_color_is_grey_a_color/ | {
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"There are three approaches to this. One is from artist point of view, where \"white\" is a background of a piece of paper. White = place where there is no paint, a clear area.\n\nOther is from physics point of view. Colour is light, white is mix of lights, but black is no light at all. From this point of view, there is no black light, so you could argue that black colour is nothingness instead of colour. \n\nThere is a normal folk approach, where anything that has a name is considered a colour. White is a colour, green is a colour and black is a colour. You don't go to a shop saying you want shirt in the colour of nothingness - that would be pretentious. ",
"Ok, we'll start with a brief introduction to light and then basic color theory:\n\nEDIT: I should add this: the way we see things is based on reflection. Light comes from a source, like the sun or a light bulb, and is reflected off an object and into our eye, which is interpreted by the brain. \n\nWhite light, which is based on sunlight, is considered to be made of all colors in the spectrum. [Using a prism,](_URL_0_) one can break white light down into the spectrum, which you would recognize as a rainbow. Now, when you have a white piece of paper, the paper reflects almost all of those colors and so appears \"white.\" \n\nIf you have a black piece of paper, it absorbs almost all of the light that hits it. It is not truly black because it still reflects some of the light, otherwise you would not be able to see it. If you drew a white circle on the black paper, that circle would be reflecting most of the visible light that hits it, while the rest of the paper absorbs the light. In a completely dark room, you would not be able to see either the paper or the circle, since there is no visible light available to reflect off the surface. \n\nSo, back to the prism and color theory. Remember how the prism broke the sunlight into a rainbow? That's because all of those colors are in the white light. So when you see something that is 'white', what you're actually seeing is all the colors of the rainbow reflected from a surface at the same angle. When you see something that is 'black' or 'grey', what you're seeing is the same thing, except that the amount of those colors that gets reflected is less. So, in essence, white, black, and grey are not different colors but different levels of light. To go back to your piece of paper, what you would notice if you took the intensity of the lights from 100% down to 0% is that the white circle would gradually appear greyer on the black paper until it finally looked 'black' because there was no light for it to reflect. \n",
"Is it in a box of crayola crayons? \n\nThose wacky people and their wacky color names, oh boy. ",
"Color happens in the brain. Everything you see is a color."
]
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34zhmo | how and why did tony hawk get so famous? | Besides doing the first 900 what made his fame skyrocket, and why he is now worth so much? | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/34zhmo/eli5_how_and_why_did_tony_hawk_get_so_famous/ | {
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"One of the pioneers in skateboarding he founded birdhouse skateboards and even into his mid 40's still participates in the skateboarding community. ",
"He won a lot of skateboarding competitions, had his name on a successful series of skateboarding based video games, and has been a media personality in general for a while. ",
"There's a biopic on Netflix call Bones brigade about a group of skateboarders who made the sport what it is today. Highly recommended if you want to know how he made it big",
"I think a lot of it was timing -- he was the biggest skating star at the time when skate culture was just beginning to be considered trendy in the mainstream media, and he capitalized on that. ",
"[Police Academy 4](_URL_0_) That role alone set him on his path to glory.",
"To the average person who has no real interest in skateboarding vert is normally far more appealing because of the high flying tricks that are done versus some of the technical stuff that gets done in Street skating. \n\nHe's also a legend that's been around since the bones brigade. \n\nRight time right place. Skate culture became trendy.\n\nThe xgames started around the same time. \n\nHe's also a competition skater and those guys tend to be more marketable. \n\nTony hawk pro skater was a fantastic game that appeals to all kinds of people. Even people who have never skated. ",
"My first board was a Tony Hawk Powell-Peralta. That was like 25 years ago. The dude is a legend. Besides being sponsored and all the merchandising that comes with it, he has been in movies, and got a piece of every video game with his name from Activision.\n\n[Read his Wikipedia article. It answers your question in more detail.](_URL_0_)"
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1k7te8 | what is democratic socialism, how does it work, is it possible/feasible? | I'm not the smartest person in the world so please put as much detail in it as you can. | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/1k7te8/eli5_what_is_democratic_socialism_how_does_it/ | {
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"Socialism in general is a broad range of ideas, which can be applied in many different ways. At its core, socialism is just an economic philosophy based on the principals of need-based production for the purpose of meeting physical economic demands rather than gaining profits. In other words, a shoe company produces shoes based on how many people need new shoes, not based on how much money people are willing to spend on the shoe industry. \n\nAs for democratic socialism, this is just the application of democratic methods to achieve socialism. You could overthrow your government and put in a new, centralized government in charge of regulating production and distribution of goods, or you can gradually elect and vote socialist ideals into play. The latter is domocratic socialism. The end goal of democratic socialism is to put economic power in the hands of the stakeholders (the people, as they are most affected by the economy) rather than the shareholders (people who invest money or own businesses) as in capitalist societies, and not into the hands of a centralized authority such as a government. Proponents of democratic socialism believe that the use of democracy to shift away from capitalism is the best way to keep the power in the hands of the people supporting the change.\n\nI'll let someone else get into the details of if it is possible/feasible and how well it works or can work."
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qhc1m | tv settings such as brightness vs contrast and sharpness. | Edit: A brief explanation on each setting such as tint, brightness, color, etc. Thanks! | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/qhc1m/eli5_tv_settings_such_as_brightness_vs_contrast/ | {
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"Brightness is how much light the screen is putting out, contrast is the difference between the brightest parts of the screen and the darkest.",
" Many of the names of the settings come from the way old, CRT tv's worked. Sharpness dealt with the focus of the beam of electrons in the picture tube, but with new flat screens, the pixels are fixed in size and location. Tint would be related to the color (hue) of the image. Pictures on screen are made from blue, green, and red lights, so if the balance gets off, you get an image that is tinted blue or green or yellow or whatever. In old tv's the colors were tuned by separate parts, so they needed to be calibrated. ",
"In your typical LCD or plasma, it goes something like this:\n\n* Brightness - black level, this controls how dark the pixels go for \"black\" parts of the signal. You want to set this so full black becomes the darkest black your display can put out, and no lower. If its too low, things slightly above black (ex, RGB 15-15-15) will be displayed as black as well, and this will \"crush out\" shadow detail. \n\n* Confusingly, LCDs also have a backlight. This is sometimes labeled brightness as well, and its always a bit of a game to see if \"brightness\" controls the black level or backlight unless there is obviously another control called \"backlight\" or something. The backlight brightness can be adjusted to taste, although lower levels will be more impressive in a dark room, and it's generally set very high from the factory. You get darker blacks with lower backlight levels, since there is less light for the LCD to filter out.\n\n* Contrast/Picture - white level, basically the opposite, how bright full white is represented. You set this so full white is the brightest white your display can put out. If you set this too high, light colors will be crushed to white.\n\n* Color is usually just a saturation control, although nicer displays will have separate red, green, and blue controls. RGB is probably not exactly balanced internally, so usually cranking this up will overblow some color (it's usually red)\n\n* Color temperature deals with the RGB balance, it's what color \"grey\" is defined as. There are a couple of different possible settings, but you want to set it to 6500K/D65. This is because video is produced with the expectation that you used this setting. Your TV is probably set colder than this, since bright blue is eye catching in the store. If your TV doesn't mention what temp the settings really are (ex, cool2, cool1, normal, warm1, warm2) change it to the warmest setting, that is almost always 6500K. If your TV has warm1 and warm2, it's possible that 6500K is warm1, and warm2 is something overly warm. You can often find out the proper setting with a bit of googling for a reviewer or home theater fan who checked it with a meter. But seriously, it's probably \"warm\" or \"warm2\" if you have two \"warm\" settings.\n\n* Tint is a green/red balance, leave this at 0/centered, you'll need at the very least filter glasses and a test pattern to set this correctly.\n\n* Sharpness nowadays is just an edge enhancement/blur effect. Find the setting that disables it, usually either 0 or halfway point (check your manual, not all TVs have the blur/negative sharpness feature, but some do)\n\n\nHelpful links:\n_URL_1_\n_URL_2_\n_URL_0_"
]
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2obgbt | how do the space ships designed to transport humans to the moon or mars relaunch from those places to return to earth? | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/2obgbt/eli5_how_do_the_space_ships_designed_to_transport/ | {
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"As of right now there's only ever been craft to take humans to the moon.\n\nIt landed with the engine pointed down already. It simply activated them to take off again."
]
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||
86x34n | what's the difference between the nyse and the nasdaq? | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/86x34n/eli5_whats_the_difference_between_the_nyse_and/ | {
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"Both are stock exchanges (marketplaces for investing in companies) operated by two different competing companies. They do roughly the same things, but historically they were very different. NYSE traded mostly in person while NASDAQ traded mostly online; and NASDAQ specialized in tech companies (still does to some degree).",
"Both NASDAQ and the NYSE are [securities exchanges](_URL_2_). That means companies that meet the listing standards are able to list their stock on them to be traded.\n\n* [NASDAQ was started in 1971 to be an electronic stock exchange.](_URL_0_) As a result, it was marketed to be cutting edge and appealed mostly to tech companies. \n\n* The NYSE is older, [founded in 1792](_URL_1_), so a lot of older, established \"blue chip\" companies are listed on it. Tech companies are still able to list on it, but because many tech companies are already listed on the NASDAQ, they often choose to list there instead. \n\nIt should also be noted that many companies can find it more cost effective to list on one exchange over another, but it really depends on a number of factors.",
"The are the Coca-Cola and Pepsi of stock exchanges in the U.S. There are some other smaller exchanges like Chicago and Philadelphia, but the VAST majority of stocks are traded on the NYSE or NASDAQ.\n\nThe NYSE was the largest, most prestigious exchange, and the NASDAQ used to be more of a second-tier exchange with smaller, younger companies in areas like tech and pharmaceuticals... but as tech and healthcare have surged in importance and company scale, the NASDAQ has become an equal peer of the NYSE."
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b7diz3 | how do open world games go without interstitial loading screens? | So if you’re playing a typical non-open world game, every time you lose a life or enter a new area, you have to sit through a couple minutes of loading screens. How do open world games circumvent this, to create a seamless experience as you transition from one area to the next? Is an open world game continually “streaming” data off the disc/hard drive/cartridge and dumping unneeded assets from RAM on the fly? | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/b7diz3/eli5_how_do_open_world_games_go_without/ | {
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"Yes, that's exactly what it is doing. The open world is split in to sections, and only the section the player is close to is loaded. You notice if you die in open world games it will take a bit of time to load the area you respawn in. "
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3ed5jz | why do cereal and juice boxes all have "color swatches" under the tabs? | [This is an example of what I mean.](_URL_0_)
& nbsp;
They're also under the rims of coffee cups and not always the printer ink "CYMK" format. Sometimes it will be like 5 shades of the same purple color if the image on the box is just purple.
Do companies have to print swatches on the each box for some legal reason? I can't imagine it would be efficient/useful for the company itself, but I also can't imagine why the FDA would want color swatches on all the boxes and stuff.
edit: format | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/3ed5jz/eli5_why_do_cereal_and_juice_boxes_all_have_color/ | {
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"They're to verify the printing. If the blue on that swatch is faded then you know the rest of the blue on the box is faded. If the crosshairs are misaligned then you know the box art is misaligned.",
"They are used by the packaging company to control their printing process. It doesn't consume much ink, but offers a constant data point of how correct the color reproduction and printing alignment is.",
"The swatches are there so the pressman can adjust the plates on the printer. There is no legal requirements for them. ",
"As others have said it's there as a tool for the printers. Every item commercially printed would have them but things like books and magazines would have these marks on the areas that are guillotined off after binding so you wouldn't see them.",
"When these packages are printed through an Offset Printer, each color is printed independently. So, these **swatches** are basically a **tool** to check the colours when printed. With them, you can see if the cyan is darker than it should, or if the magenta is more reddish than it should.\n\nA **cool fact** is that you can know *how many* colours the printer used when printing the package. (In this case, 6 colours: the basic CMYK (**cyan**, **magenta**, **yellow** and **black**), and two *special colours*: **red** and **blue**)"
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5l8foa | why do pro gamers retire in their early 20's? do your reflexes really drop so significantly that early in life? | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/5l8foa/eli5why_do_pro_gamers_retire_in_their_early_20s/ | {
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"It's more social pressures, really. There are some relatively old eSports players still at the top of their games. Polt is 28, Taz is 30. But most retire before then.\n\nSouth Korean players get a special mention here, as they always have the looming threat of mandatory military service. They can postpone it, but eventually they'll have to take it, and many would rather do it early than late.\n\neSports has gotten much bigger recently, but it's still new and much less stable than sports. And being a competitive player is an exhausting and stressful job. In many cases, prize pools still make up a good chunk of player's incomes. So you always have the stress to be the best.\n\nIn a normal day job, you're not at constant competition with your peers. If you don't \"perform\" well for a while, you don't get kicked from your team. You still get payed the same. \n\nEventually, people want to settle down.",
"For one thing, the games change.\n\nYou aren't a professional gamer...you are a professional DOTA 2 gamer or Starcraft 2 or League of Legends or whatever.\n\nAs new games emerge, prize money for the the older games shrinks, and there is no guarantee being a top player in one game will ensure success in another. If I were a 25 year old top Counterstrike pro with a bunch of prize money in the bank, I might be thinking about what I want to do for the next phase of my life. That's still young enough to go to college and go back to being a normal person with a nice nest egg in the bank.",
"One thing the other commenters haven't mentioned is health and burnout. Pro gamers work a grueling schedule: 12+ hour days, day after day, honing their skills. It's not a game to them; it's their job, so they can't just log off and do something else if they get bored. Many retiring players say that they do it because they want games to be *fun* again. \n\nAlso, carpal tunnel syndrome.",
"Several reasons:\n\n1) you don't really make that much money. Only top players make the big money. For every guy making over $100k a year, there are hundreds who don't. It's kind of like the acting industry. The top 1% of actors make huge money, the other 99% are broke. At some point these guys realize they will never be a top player and they can make more money doing something else.\n\n2) it not all fun and games, it is a job. These guys play the same game every day for 12+ hours a day to be as good as they are. Just imagine that. It would get real boring, really quickly. Also, they are not playing to have fun, they are playing to win. They only get paid when they win, so there is a lot of stress to win. Even if these guys are on contract with guaranteed pay, they are always at risk of losing that contract if their performance slips or if the team finds a better player to replace them.\n\n3) medical reasons. Yes, you read that correctly. Carpal tunnel syndrome is real and extremely painful. Using all those fine motor skills in the hand can actually damage the muscles and tendons in the hand. Our hands were not designed to use the fine motor muscle constantly for hours on end. Also, the pressure and constant stress to win takes a physical toll on the body.\n\n4) games change. Most professional gamers specialize in 1 or maybe 2 games. After a few years, and as new games come out, older games stop getting media coverage and the prize money for their tournaments drop. In some cases, tournaments cease to exist for that game and there is no more demand. If you are lucky, your chosen game will have several iterations (like Halo or COD) that only have minor changes as each new version comes out. If not, there is no guarantee that you will be as good at a different game.\n\n5) At some point, you want a normal life. You want to be able to date, get married, have kids, etc. You need a stable career and free time to do this.",
"As a pro gamer between 1999 and 2001, I can tell you my reasons (I was not even 20 at the time).\n\nThe pro gamer scene back then was nothing like the current. I just had fun with friends and even won the national tournaments hosted on my country for UT99, I was one of the best player back then. Prices were not even money, I didn't care for that.\n\nEventually, the videogame was relegated a lot (by CS, Q3 and SC) and most people lost interest. In 2002, under (understandable) pressure from my parents I started university, so that was it. I still play a lot, even more than 15 years ago, but for personal enjoyment.",
"I can confirm I had to give up gaming console entirely at 40...kids reflexes are just too fast"
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9srb96 | do we know how greek and latin were originally pronounced? | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/9srb96/eli5_do_we_know_how_greek_and_latin_were/ | {
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"While he isn’t referring specifically to Greek or Latin, Dr Jackson Crawford has several YouTube video about Old Norse and other Old or dead languages, and he explains in detail how we know what old languages sounded like based on certain modern characteristics and modern languages that may echo the old pronunciation, along with how we know that languages have changed over time. \n\nI would recommend that you check out his videos, and you’ll get a clear answer to this. I had asked the same question about Old Norse and how we know what I sounded like. ",
"We don't really. Ancient Greek and Latin are reconstructed based on modern Greek and Italian and ancient Greek and Latin writings.\n\nWe know, for example, that Latin used V as a \"sometimes vowel\", both where we would use U and V in modern romance languages. Because of that and the fact that Italian uses both U and V sounds, we assume that words like VENI are pronounced \"veh-ni\", and ANIMVS is pronounced \"ah-ni-muss\". But it is easily possible that it was mostly the same sound, even as a consonant, making VENI \"oo-eh-ni\" or \"weh-ni\"\n\nUnless we go back in time, we will never know 100% for sure.",
"We do have what was essentially text books for both ancient Greek and Latin. This was intended for both foreigners who wanted to learn the language and for poets who wanted to sound better. So we have a quite detailed description of how you should pronounce each sylibal. And unlike modern written languages, especially English, they did not have advanced rules for how to pronounce text. Each letter were usually pronounced and were pronounced the same way in every case.",
"_URL_0_\n\n\nthis person explains it so much better than i can, but the too long, didn’t read answer is this. basically it comes from looking at the writing we have from that period. but also looking at how people described how they spoke, people describing how those weirdos over there said things wrong, what rhymes in songs, and even puns. put that together with some linguistics skills and you can get a halfway decent idea."
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743m95 | how did we become to trust banks with all our money? | I know if I were in the early years of banking I sure as hell wouldn't trust them with my life savings. | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/743m95/eli5_how_did_we_become_to_trust_banks_with_all/ | {
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"Well you could watch some videos about that on YT. I reccomend extra-history: Money. \n\nSo early in italy there was a lot of trade, and a lot of different currency. So the banks helped exchange money. You got some paper wich you could exchange at your lockal bank for gold. Eventually people never bothered to turn the papers instead just traded with the papermoney...",
" > I know if I were in the early years of banking I sure as hell wouldn't trust them with my life savings.\n\nYou mean when most likely you would be a dirt poor peasant who didn't have *any* life savings?\n\nEarly banking grew in a haphazard way but it was mostly used by wealthy merchants. The first real banks were in Italy and mostly acted as a neutral third party through which merchants could buy and sell goods without having to carry 100lb of gold across a country that was rife with bandits and armies. Instead the banks would issue promissory notes (the ancestor of our paper money) and would exchange these notes between each other so that trade could go on.\n\nFrom there is evolved into the modern system we have today.",
"The original conception of a bank was simply a storehouse for wealth, initially represented by money. Rather than keep all your wealth on you (robbery) or at your home (theft, home invasion robbery), you pay for your wealth to be securely guarded by people who's jobs it is to protect that money. \n\nTrue banking came about when bankers started loaning that money out as loans with interest rates. This was seen as a good idea by depositors, as they would no longer have to pay a fee for their wealth to be guarded. Additionally, banks could now accept more deposits and accounts from more people since every deposit represents float they can use to issue loans (rather than a cost).\n\nBank runs and closures were always an issue of course but far less prevalent than simple robbery.",
"Well it's a choice between trusting them with your life savings, or trust your life savings to all the people around you.\n\nOr more specifically when traveling, it was a good idea to have a personal note from a bank that you could then redeem rather than carrying all your wealth with you making you a target to be robbed and murdered."
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1v77ur | when your pen stops writing mid-word, you make it write again somewhere else, then try to write the same word in the same place as before, why it will stop writing again so often? | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/1v77ur/eli5_when_your_pen_stops_writing_midword_you_make/ | {
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"It's probably the surface you are writing on that is causing the pen to stop",
"Usually, it's because you were writing too hard and made the ball stop turning because it's too slippery. You turn the ball somewhere else and the ball turns easier"
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8wq6fr | why can they make phone chargers that fit both ways but cant make a usb plug that fits in both ways? | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/8wq6fr/eli5_why_can_they_make_phone_chargers_that_fit/ | {
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"They do, USB C. The more common USB types (A, B, Mini, Micro etc) will take a while to phase out as there is still so much tech out there that still uses them, especially USB A."
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b17t5r | what is modern macroeconomic theory and why do none of the top economists support it? | Today is the first time I've ever heard of it and all I have been able to find is conflicting information. Some seem to present it as a new school of thought (ex. Monetarism, Keynesian, New-Keynesian, Neo-Classical, etc.), but I haven't found anything to support this type of claim. Basically, does anyone actually know what this refers to, and what its underlying assumptions are? | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/b17t5r/eli5_what_is_modern_macroeconomic_theory_and_why/ | {
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"At a simple level, it posits a disconnect between spending and taxes. That is, the amount government spends is unrelated to the amount it collects as tax revenue.\n\nInstead, this discrepancy is merely an exercise in monetary policy.\n\nImagine for a moment that the U.S. government decided to just stop collecting taxes. Would it also have to stop spending? The answer is no. It could simply produce currency to pay its bills. Because the government has a monopoly over currency, everyone else is forced to accept it.\n\nThe reason you don't find economists supporting it is that it tends to fall into the category of overly simplistic models. While virtually any modern economist will agree with the basic notion that revenue and taxation are de-coupled in a way that my salary and my spending aren't, exploiting this fact in the way the MMT proponents describe normally leads to disaster.",
"So here's the first statement that economists disagreed with:\n\n\\- “Countries that borrow in their own currency should not worry about government deficits because they can always create money to finance their debt.” \n\nThis basically takes a truism in monetary economics, that a country that borrows in its own currency should never default on its debts, and stretches it. Leaving aside the fact that [the truism isn't even true](_URL_0_), it's kind of like going from \"A human can live with only one kidney\" to \"Go ahead, stab me in the kidney\". That is, a government borrowing in its own currency (probably) won't default from excess debt. Default would be a huge disaster, so that's good I guess? However, it will avoid the huge disaster only by bringing about a slightly-less-huge disaster and creating a hyperinflation crisis as it inflates the debt away. That's related to the second statement...\n\n\\- “Countries that borrow in their own currency can finance as much real government spending as they want by creating money.” \n\nThe key word here is \"real\". Printing money is an accounting trick. It doesn't produce any more of the goods and services that the government actually wants to buy. It's a classic pitfall of \"planned\" economies to think that doubling the \"budget\" for wheat by printing more money will actually double the amount of wheat available. Instead it just causes the price of some fixed amount of wheat to double. This is why the worst kind of inflation almost always stems from government stupidity or desperation. \n\nTo sum up: the basic reason why any economist worth their salt should be very suspicious of MMT is that it tries to wave away tradeoffs. Economics is all about the distribution of scarce resources, and you can't magic those up on a money printing press. If the government wants to give something of value to a citizen (e.g. a public servant, a military contractor, or a food stamp recipient), it *must* take something of value away from someone else. Government spending that pretends otherwise will eventually get pulled back to reality. \n\n & #x200B;"
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1yxkky | why do some people worship satan? | I'm actually a pagan myself (/r/Asatru if yer interested), but I sometimes wonder why some people consider themselves to be satanists. If the Christians believe that he is a personification of evil and you'll be sent to a horrible place if you follow him, then why do some people still want to devote their lives to him? | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/1yxkky/eli5_why_do_some_people_worship_satan/ | {
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"If you're referring to Satanism, they don't actually worship Satan. It's simply the antithesis of Christian ethics. Most satanists are atheist. They just don't hold to 'love your neighbor' and such.",
"There aren't really any significant number of actual Satan worshipers.\n\nFirst off, you've got your disturbed teenagers that listen to heavy metal & want to piss off their parents. There's no real \"worship\" here, just doing \"naughty\" things to get attention.\n\nSecondly you have the [Anton Levey Satanists](_URL_1_) that don't really believe in the Christian mythology - at most, they view it as bad propaganda trying to make Satan look bad. To them, Satan is a symbol of free will & independence.\n\nThirdly, you've got some batshit Christians that need to have something to 'fight' against. They *make up* Satanic cults, just like they did [witches in the Salem Witch Trials](_URL_2_). The early 80s were full of supposed [satanic ritual abuse](_URL_0_) and the like but none of it ever actually turned out to be real. People that believe that angels & demons are real can believe all kinds of far out shit...",
"Satanist here. I'll try to keep this simple as possible.\n\nWhat most people in this thread are describing is the atheistic branch that tries to call itself \"Satanism\"... which is not Satanism.\n\nFirst off, I don't believe in \"worshiping\" him. I consider him more of a friend and a mentor, not some being that is to be slavishly worshiped.\n\nSecond... Unlike what all the abrahamic/xtian versions say, he's actually a kind and caring person. In the early years of humanity, he was known as the Sumerian deity Enki; this deity (and his allies) genetically transformed the then-current humans into what we are now. He's basically the \"creator of humanity\" if you will.\n\nHe and his allies then lost a heavy battle against those who opposed our creation, and were imprisoned for thousands of years. During these thousands of years, their own genetic creations started religions against Enki, to slander him and his allies as \"Satan\" and \"demons.\"\n\nIn short, the christian \"evil red guy with horns\" version of him does not exist; that version of him is basically a pattern of telling a lie so often, and for so long, it becomes \"truth\". The actual truth has become so distorted that it's hard to tell fact from fiction unless one is educated. \n\nIn closing... if you see a non-abrahamic religion with a \"creator of humanity\" god or \"king of the gods\" type role, it's usually him under a different nickname. Not \"torture and deceive all humans\" or some rubbish like his enemies promote.\n\n[I did an AMA here a while back, if you're interested.](_URL_0_)"
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75b9iy | why do some cops in big cities like new york use horses? | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/75b9iy/eli5_why_do_some_cops_in_big_cities_like_new_york/ | {
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"They're usually used for crowd control purposes. Being on a horse allows the officer more visibility while also being easier to spot for those who may need them. They're also used where a car just wouldn't be practical, like a wilderness areas or a very large grassy park, ex: Central Park in New York",
"In nEw Orleans we use them for crowd contol. You get the fuck out of the way when one of those huge horses start moving. I've also seen them form a wall. Pretty cool.",
"I used to wonder about this too. Then I was caught in a football riot, and saw a mass of hundreds controlled by just a few cops on horses. The sight of those beasts coming towards you in a row, slowly and inexorably, is awe-inspiring. I can't even imagine what having them galloping at you would do to you.",
"They've been a tried and tested way to control crowds for thousands of years. Ever tried fucking with someone on a horse who knows what he's doing?",
"They are used for crowd control purposes for the most part. They are very common in Britain as well. Especially during big football games and protests.\n\nI live in a town outside Edinburgh, and one time the crime got so bad they had police on horses patrolling certain estates all day. Was quite weird but I guess it does deter people from committing crimes",
"What about when the horse poops? Is it the officers job to clean it up or is it someone's job?",
"[This is why](_URL_0_)\nNotice the guy at the beginning and the guy at the end that are too slow to move. \nTurns out horses are pretty heavy and strong ",
"The real reason, and most effective reason, is public relations. \n\nWatch to see, a troubled area, or an area that just had a shooting, a lot of times mounted units are sent to the area, because people love animals, kids especially, and will often times go out and talk to the officers, meet the animals, have a positive social interaction with police, fostering better community relations. People will even sometimes give information on crime or problems in the community through this interaction, like where the crack houses are, or where some troubled people might be living. \n\nThey are good for riot/crowd control, and a good visible patrol, but PR and community relations is what they are best at. ",
"Horses offer a number of benefits in city environments that make them an ideal partner in many situations. They allow a rider to sit up high for a better view of what's going on. They can turn around or maneuver in tighter spaces than a car could. Horses are great for dealing with crowds as well, because they're big animals and if they push you, you're going to move. There's also a bit of natural fear that humans have of a big animal that may trample them, so people tend to respect a horse much more than they respect a police car. Adding to that, some people won't think twice about smashing a cop car window, but it's a whole different story if you're attacking an animal. Especially if that animal can fight back.\n\nIt's also only my personal opinion, but I think a cop on a horse is seen as a bit more friendly and personable than a cop in a car.",
"I know diddly about horses. The couple of times I've been around them their owners warned me to back off or I'd risk getting kicked. They particularly seem nervous of people getting behind them. I always kind of wondered how well trained police horses are to be in the middle of crowds and not be nervy about the people around them.",
"Went to Times Square in NYC one night. It was very crowded. There were police on horses. Police cars or motorcycles just wouldn't work in those dense crowds. Bikes could maybe work. Horses definitely work well.",
"Community policing is a big part of why they're used too. All part of a greater effort for better police-civilian relations. They might not be in the best tactical situation while riding a horse through the park but they'll get a lot of attention from people and kids admiring the horse.",
"Don't forget mobility! Horses can manuever up, through, or around obstacles. Since, having the ability to jump and what not",
"Because horses can shit on the street giving a nice slippery trap to stop pesky criminals.\n\nIn all seriousness it's the same reason motorcycle cops exist. More maneuverable. Except horses can more easily go off road.",
"My initial thought was that the horses have been around long before modern metropolitan police or even cars. After a quick look into it there is a pretty rich history. \n\nHistory of NYPD’s Mounted Unit\nA Stately Presence: The NYPDs Mounted Unit\nNew York City police have used horse-mounted officers since at least 1858, with the opening of Central Park. Since its formal organization in 1871, the Mounted Unit has evolved into one of the NYPD's most visible andelite police units. This exciting exhibit will explore their fascinating history and continuing day-to-day operations. Through artifacts that include saddles, harnesses and uniforms, paintings, video, and historic photographs, the exhibit will delve into the lives and work of the officers known by their nickname,\"10-foot cops.\"\nOne area of the exhibit will even provide a lifelike recreation of a stable for the Unit's horses. Overall, the exhibit explores the history of their patrol in parks, city streets, parades, and city-wide demonstrations, and examines the training and dedication required of both police officer and horse alike. \n\n_URL_0_\n",
"Side note: in San Francisco and San Jose, they have trading cards for both the horse & officer. You just have to ask for it. They are super cool.\n\n(I used to collect them and always got excited when I saw a mounted officer. Don't know if the still make cards.)",
"Two reasons, for crowd control in large public events and for public relations - people love to approach police on horses and get to meet the horse. [I know the second reason sounds odd, but it's true.](_URL_0_)",
"Horses are great for crowd control because they're intimidating (most people will instinctively get out of the way) but not threatening (very few people perceive a horse as a weapon). ",
"Horses are a force multiplier. The typical factor given is that in an inforcement action, a horse accounts for 10 human officers.\n\nHorces also tend to calm people down. Or make them think about moving on.",
"One of the best advantages of it is that the police officer does not have to watch where he's going. The horse can navigate, leaving the officer free to pay attention to the crowd. ",
"one additional point, horses also have the same quality that bike cops get, they don't isolate you like being in a car does. it lets you hear what's going on around you.",
"A few different reasons, but when patrolling it helps spread goodwill and interaction with the community. They can also go places faster than bicycle cops, they control crowds by their size and force (and will fight back if provoked), unlike a bike they also have self preservation and will (usually) try not to die when carrying you (bikes don’t do that). I could go on... ",
"Also, besides all the other mentions, horse cops are way more chill and way less douche than bike cops. Motorbike cops are the worst followed by bicycle cops.",
"Multiple reasons, some have already been mentioned in to comments, others haven't. Keep in mind that this is based on my experience working with this in Sweden. Mileage in other countries may vary. \n\n1. Horses are less noisy and more approachable. People can come up and talk to the officer in a different way. \n\n2. The horse still offers mobility and speed. \n\n3. Tradition and culture. In a lot of places, like Sweden (where I live) horses are fairly integrated in culture. People enjoy seeing horses out and about. Not everyone want to approach one, but that's fine. \n\n4. Crowd control. You absolutely do not fuck with one of those horses. They're huge, and on their back you have a trained police officer. It's a force multiplier. I've seen sports events riot like situations where three mounted officers replaced 20-25 officers in riot gear. The fights stopped immediately and people scattered. \n\n5. Accessibility. A mounted officer can move in areas where a car can technically move, but is advised not to because it could cause blockage or congestion. Such as walking streets or shop streets. \n\n6. Visibility. A police forces primary task is to maintain law and order. This is preferably done by preemptive measure, with things as simple as visible presence being at the top of efficiency. A mounted officer can both see and be seen easier. This has a calming effect on the public as well as encourages approaching the officer. We were often approached about very minor things, which didn't warrant any kind of report or anything, but that keeps the public happy and calm to be able to let the authorities know about. ",
"One thing I noticed being around my cousins horses in Carlise and Langholm is that they are really fucking big and powerful. I can see why through out history and in some places today there use remain relevant. ",
"* Taller than a bike (better visibility)\n* Can go where cars cant/move in traffic\n* Faster than walking",
"New York has Central Park. Horses are able to go where a police car can't. Crowds move aside for horses. Mounted Police can see above traffic and crowds.",
"They are fantastic for crowd control. I was outside Madison Square Garden one night. The crowd was on the verge of mayhem. 4 cops on horses came right up the stone stairs outside. In short order they split these assholes up and dispersed them. Horses move people like you wouldn't believe. They get to places scooters/cars can't and they give a great view from the saddle.",
"I wondered this too when I was growing up. Then I watched an episode of Cops that showed it for me. Like this, in a crowd in New Orleans.\n\n_URL_0_\n\nA few things stand out. \n\nThe officers can see everyone and everything. \n\nAn officer would have to push to get through the crowd, a horse just walks and people have to part.\n\nA half-ton animal is so big it gives even a belligerent drunk pause. It takes a special person to think they can fight a horse."
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||
7wvfvo | why is the end of the nail different than the bottom of the nail if the nail grows upward and they are the same thing? | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/7wvfvo/eli5_why_is_the_end_of_the_nail_different_than/ | {
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"Well it's so one end is pointy and it'll go into the wood easily, and the other end has more surface area so it's easier to hit with a hammer and transfers more energy.",
"Oh you mean finger nails, right? My first thought was wood nails haha. As for the colour Change, the keratin which your nail is made of needs to be hydrated and is so whilst in contact with the skin constantly but once it reaches past that then it dies and turns white.",
"Note: I am talking about finger nails, not regular nails. Sorry for the confusion haha."
]
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[],
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||
jm9i0 | how does bill proration work? | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/jm9i0/eli5_how_does_bill_proration_work/ | {
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"Bill proration is adjusting how much you pay for a good/service depending on how much of it you used. Think of the bill like a candy bar that costs $1 but you only want half of the candy bar. The person selling you would \"prorate\" the price of the candy bar to $.50 \n\nAn adult version of this would be rent. Let's say your parents pay $500 a month for ya'lls place but ya'll moved half way into the month. Since ya'll weren't using your place for the full month the person renting out the place (known as a landlord) would only charge your parents half of that month's rent, $250.",
"Bill proration is adjusting how much you pay for a good/service depending on how much of it you used. Think of the bill like a candy bar that costs $1 but you only want half of the candy bar. The person selling you would \"prorate\" the price of the candy bar to $.50 \n\nAn adult version of this would be rent. Let's say your parents pay $500 a month for ya'lls place but ya'll moved half way into the month. Since ya'll weren't using your place for the full month the person renting out the place (known as a landlord) would only charge your parents half of that month's rent, $250."
]
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[],
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||
7654oc | how does gravitropism work? | Additional: How would affect plants in places with other gravity, e.g. Moon? | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/7654oc/eli5how_does_gravitropism_work/ | {
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"Some plant cells are sensitive to gravity, and the plant uses this information to send the root down and the stalk up when the seed germinates. It would not work as well on the Moon or Mars, where there is less gravity, but some effect is still likely. Of course, both these places have a larger obstacle to plant life - no atmosphere."
]
} | [] | [] | [
[]
] |
|
6or2zf | why is the molecular weight standard (the amu) measured as 1/12 of a carbon-12 atom? why not base it off of hydrogen or helium? | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/6or2zf/eli5_why_is_the_molecular_weight_standard_the_amu/ | {
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"text": [
"In 1903, before they had discovered elemental isotopes, it was suggested to use 1/16th the mass of oxygen and quite a bit of literature built up around it. But in 1929 isotopic oxygen was discovered and different standards were established for chemistry and physics respectively. This lead to a divergence of calculations which in 1961 was corrected by changing the definition to carbon-12. One of the reasons carbon-12 was chosen was to minimize divergence from prior literature."
]
} | [] | [] | [
[]
] |
||
a0ifa9 | why does our brain sometimes wake us up during the night, despite there being no external stimulus, and when we clearly have not had enough sleep? | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/a0ifa9/eli5_why_does_our_brain_sometimes_wake_us_up/ | {
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"text": [
"Depends. What kind of waking up are you talking about?\nThe one where you have no chance to go to sleep again (insomnia style) or more like waking up, realizing it’s still bed time, rolling to the side and going back to sleep? ",
"Just wanted to add to what others have written - there's a chance that there was some external stimulus (noise, temperature, light, movement, feeling), that you weren't aware of at the time of waking up.\n\nFor example, you may hear your phone buzzing in the next room just enough to wake up, but you may not understand that's what you've heard, or that you've indeed heard it. (happens to me with my alarm sometimes)\n\nMy SO occasionally wakes up like that while I'm still awake, and it's usually due to some random \"interference\" (noise or light mostly), but when she wakes up she's not aware of any reason for waking up.\n\nHope this helps :)",
"I've heard that back in the olden days we never used to sleep through the night but would wake and get up for a few hours during the night before going back to sleep again. ",
"Happens to me when I have caffeine after 4pm or so. I assumed caffeine didn't really affect me since I drink it so much. But I started paying attention and it really does affect my sleep even when my tolerance is at its highest."
]
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[],
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||
3opcsp | why don't modern tv's have more than 3 light colours? | Screens are made up of RGB, but why don't modern HD TV's have more to get even better colour quality? | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/3opcsp/eli5_why_dont_modern_tvs_have_more_than_3_light/ | {
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"text": [
"You wouldn't necessarily get better color quality. Our eyes have only three different types of color receptor. This is known as trichromatic vision. If you added another color, that would mean you would have more than one way to represent a given color, but there's no real advantage to that - it would look the same to our eyes, and it would reduce the resolution, because each individual pixel would be larger.\n\nPrinters usually use four colors - cyan, magenta, yellow, and black added. This is partly because it's difficult to reproduce black accurately by mixing cyan, magenta, and yellow (even though you could in theory), but also because black is a very common text color and it saves on the color ink.",
"Because you can make almost any color by playing with the intensity of each of the 3 sub-pixels included in a pixel.\n\nAlso less sub-pixels means a pixel will take less space which implies more pixels for a certain surface \n",
"That's not true at all. Sharp makes RGBY TV's (RGB + yellow) since 2010. They call this technology [Quattron](_URL_0_). Whether it works better, it's debatable.",
"You only need RGB to make every color the human eye is able to detect. The combination of colors in discreet amounts with give rise to millions of colors. Light has additive properties which means you get a range of different colors when added and will eventually add up to white when combined enough. \n\n_URL_0_\n\nSource: I work with digital cinema projectors and have to calibrate the color systems.",
"Because it *wouldn't* improve things. But it *would* make the equipment more complicated and more expensive (at least using current technologies), and would also quite probably take up more transmission bandwidth (more information to encode).\n\nUnderstand - your eye *doesn't* see thousands of colours. It sees only **three** - red, green and blue. The three types of cone cells in a normal eye are tuned to those wavelengths; if a different colour comes in, they may react - but not as strongly. So each and every colour of light that reaches your retina gets registered as varying amounts of just those three colours. The \"thousands\" bit happens in your brain, when it compares just how much of each of the three it got.\n\nBut crucially, neither your eye nor your brain can tell the difference between light that is a mix of those three colours, and whatever monochrome light stimulates the receptors to the same degree. Send the right mix of the three colours, and you can show the brain any colour you want. (Lots of Red, lots of Green, no Blue? \"Yellow\". Doesn't matter whether the eye actually got pure yellow light, or an equal mixture of pure red and pure green - the eye can't tell, and the signal the brain gets is the same.) More colours wouldn't add anything; they'd just get broken straight back down into RGB by the eye, leading to a different mix that you could have sent with three colours anyway. So that's what TV sets send - RGB. It's an optical illusion - frankly, an out-and-out con trick - but it's one that works, and it's the simplest solution to date.\n\n(The brain is effectively pulling the same trick that has been used in the past to allow cameras on spacecraft to take full colour images using monochrome photography - take a picture through a red filter, then take the same picture through green and blue filters. When the three are combined - full, perfect colour. As far as the average human eye is concerned, at least; some animals register more, or less, colours than us, and probably wouldn't agree. Nor would they necessarily agree that the colour on a colour TV is correct.)"
]
} | [] | [] | [
[],
[],
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"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Quattron"
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"https://dotcolordotcom.files.wordpress.com/2011/10/cie1931gridedit1.png"
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[]
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|
5k6200 | helium is non-renewable, but in most cases (as far as i know), it is used as is and not converted into anything else. why can't we just keep helium in something that contains it better, and doesn't allow it to escape to the atmosphere? | And I do understand that we have another ~250 years of helium in reserve, and that the U.S is selling of its stockpile, but why are we using it so brashly, versus making more airtight applications? | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/5k6200/eli5_helium_is_nonrenewable_but_in_most_cases_as/ | {
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"text": [
"Why are using a finite resource so carelessly? Balloons and funny noises.",
"We do. Labs always recycle their helium. When you use helium, you're incentivised to pump it back into a storage tank. But it's still a fairly cheap thing, so normal consumers work based on that."
]
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[],
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|
1x30w3 | how does evolution and the big bang disprove existence of any god? | I believe in evolution and the big bang and am not a religious man at all but I don't see how these events are proof that there couldn't be any greater force behind them. | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/1x30w3/how_does_evolution_and_the_big_bang_disprove/ | {
"a_id": [
"cf7mz1l"
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"text": [
"If you are referring to the Nye/ Kent debate, they were discussing only between evolution and creationism, not the existence of a god.\n\nBesides that its really a matter of personal belief on the subject. If you think there is something behind it then sure, there is. But if you think there isn't anything behind it, fine, there isn't. Its really just a personal opinion at that point."
]
} | [] | [] | [
[]
] |
|
e6tgul | what's the difference between having a type and fetishizing? | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/e6tgul/eli5_whats_the_difference_between_having_a_type/ | {
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"text": [
"It’s not a good black and white distinction, but generally, having a type is just kind of a subconscious preference for certain traits. Fetishization goes far beyond that. Realizing that you have a preference for redheads is one thing. Being attracted to people purely on the basis of their red hair and nothing else is more fetishization.",
"There's a clinical definition of fetish, and that is to not be able to derive sexual pleasure or gratification without that fetish element. Like if you have a foot fetish, you need feet to become sexually stimulated, it's not just going to be an element you happen to enjoy. Lots of people might have opinions about feet, and find, for example, a woman in high heels to be attractive. But a foot fetishist is not going to be attracted to a woman without the element of feet. Also, a fetish involves a non-sexual aspect as causing sexual gratification. Like getting a hard on from seeing an amputated limb or from seeing a dead person. The aspect of them being dead is the fetish, the appearance of them while dead (clothing, hair color) is the type.",
"\"Fetish\" has a scientific definition. Technically a fetish something you HAVE to have in order to get aroused that is not part of normal biological reproduction. If you are a dude with a shoe fetish, you HAVE to have shoes involved or you cant get aroused."
]
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[],
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||
3scgc4 | why are we in $19 trillion dollars debt? and how do we pay it back? is it possible to have millions of americans paying something every month until the debt is paid off? | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/3scgc4/eli5_why_are_we_in_19_trillion_dollars_debt_and/ | {
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"text": [
" > Why are we in $19 trillion dollars debt?\n\nBecause the federal government has been borrowing (more specifically, selling bonds) for a long, long time.\n\n > And how do we pay it back?\n\nBy collecting tax revenues and/or borrowing more to pay what we owe. The governments makes payments *very* regularly, and has never missed a payment.\n\n > Is it possible to have millions of Americans aying something every month until the debt is paid off?\n\nSure, but why bother? U.S. citizens have no obligation to repay that money; the government does. Granted, the government may ultimately choose to increase tax revenues and/or print money to pay for its debts, and both of those things would hurt the average U.S. citizen. But the government can always do that anyway, whether we give it extra money or not.\n\n > I meant a couple of millions that would be willing to pay something every month to catch up the debt we are in.\n\nThat's $9.5 million for each of those two million people. That's a staggering sum. If you stretch that out over four years (for example) that's still about $198,000 per month per person. (And that's assuming you could stop the clock on interest/additional borrowing, which is itself an absurd concept.) There simply aren't 2 million people with that kind of cash."
]
} | [] | [] | [
[]
] |
||
9usw4a | i have to teach 6th graders about investment and i want to talk to them about bonds, so i looked up the definition, and i have no clue what it's talking about. any help? | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/9usw4a/eli5_i_have_to_teach_6th_graders_about_investment/ | {
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"text": [
"Bonds are an agreement that if you give money to someone today they will then give you more money later.\n\nBonds are mostly issued by governments and corporations.\n\nThey are one of many ways the financial system achieves its purpose: moving money from those that have it but don't need it right now to those who need it right now but don't have it.\n\n",
"When you buy a bond you lend money to the government or a company. They eventually pay it back and give you extra money called \"interest\" to say \"thank you!\"",
"Say I borrow $100 from you. I write down that I owe you $100 on a piece of paper. That piece of paper is the bond. At some point in the future, I owe you the $100 I borrowed from you back. I am called the issuer of the bond because I wrote down the IOU on the piece of paper. You are the creditor aka the lender.\n\nNow say that you don't want to lend me the $100. You need it for something else. So I make you a deal. I'll borrow $100 from you today, but in 7 days, I'll pay you back $110. We write that on the bond. The extra $10 is called interest, and the 7 days is the maturity date of the bond aka the day I promise to pay you back.\n\nNow say you need your money back right away. But I don't have it. Instead, you find a third person and, they give you 100 or so dollars in cash in exchange for the IOU. Then I owe them the $110. They might charge you a little extra because they got you out of a bind. This is called selling a bond.\n\nFinally, say you trust me to give you back the money. You are confident that I will pay back the $110. Then things are great. But let's say you start to get nervous that I won't be able to pay you back. You can sell the bond for less than the face value. So if the IOU says that it's for $110, you can sell it for $70. Then you are guaranteed to get $70 instead of taking the chance you get nothing. For the other person, they are taking on the risk, but there is a chance they'll make $40.",
"I’m a Finance Major: \n\nELI5: A company or government needs to raise money. One way is to sell a bond. What’s a bond? A bond is an IOU they will sell to you. You pay them $1,000 today (all bonds have a face value of $1,000). \n\nLet’s say the bond is for 10 years (the time until you get paid back is the maturity). In 10 years you get your $1,000 back. But they will also pay you what’s called a “coupon”. The coupon is the interest they pay you until maturity. This coupon could be paid semi-annually or once a year. If the bond has a 7% annual coupon, that means they will pay 7% of the face value (so $70) a year. \nSo you give $1,000, receive $70 every year for 10\nyears, then in year 10 at maturity you receive your $1,000 back. \n\nOther thoughts: U.S. Government bonds (T-Bonds, T-Notes, T-Bills) are considered the safest, least riskiest investment there is. Why? Because the only way you aren’t getting your money back is if the U.S. government goes bankrupt. And frankly if that were to happen we would have a lot more to worry (as the world would be in total economic despair). You can trade your bonds before maturity to others, but the value depends on a few different things (interest rates, time to maturity) that I doubt a 6th grader would fully grasp. ",
"If you don’t feel you have a good grasp on the concept maybe look for some good short videos to show? Like [this](_URL_0_) maybe?"
]
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[],
[],
[],
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"https://youtu.be/IuyejHOGCro"
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||
1lr9w8 | why have no video game consoles made a move towards allowing keyboard and mouse inputs? | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/1lr9w8/why_have_no_video_game_consoles_made_a_move/ | {
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"Keyboard + mouse don't work so well when you're sitting on the couch.\n\nThe PS3 supports KB + mouse but I don't know how many games use them.",
"That's called a computer. But seriously, I suspect it's to perpetuate a divide between computers and consoles so console buyers don't think they're just buying lame computers.",
"At least with the PS3, it's not the console's fault at all. IIRC they, freely allow the developer to implement in their game if they want. Only a tiny handful of developers have elected to do that, however. \n\nI think the biggest reason is balancing the multiplayer experience. However, there is talk of BF4 having M/K support. All I know is that whenever the two get combined (controllers and kb+m) the controller users tend to get a little rage quit-y. The [top skill ceiling possible](_URL_0_) with a mouse is far beyond that of a controller, like at a ridiculous level, so over time you might see one population win out. ",
"Because in terms of usability and function m/k will always(tm) work better than a controller. With te most obvious reason to me being that a joystick is made to not move when the controller is tilted, making it harder for controller users to have as quick reaction.",
"Honestly, some people prefer controllers to mice and keyboards. I personally prefer a controller for a casual FPS or RPG especially since I don't get a stiff neck or lag from consoles, but when I'm playing a MOBA or RTS game, I love the variation of a keyboard.",
"The SNES had a mouse attachment for Mario Paint.",
"Dust 514 for the PS3 has full mouse and keyboard support. Makes it far to easy though. I've even heard of people getting kicked from a match for \"hacking\" since they have such a high kill/death ratio compared to everyone else using controller."
]
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[],
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"http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_detailpage&v=mHo4l-qmGHI#t=37"
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