q_id
stringlengths 5
6
| title
stringlengths 3
296
| selftext
stringlengths 0
34k
| document
stringclasses 1
value | subreddit
stringclasses 1
value | url
stringlengths 4
110
| answers
dict | title_urls
list | selftext_urls
list | answers_urls
list |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
27csa6 | why do people torrent movies and tv shows instead of streaming? streaming is instant and doesn't leave any incriminating files on your computer. | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/27csa6/eli5_why_do_people_torrent_movies_and_tv_shows/ | {
"a_id": [
"chzjwvn",
"chzjywf",
"chzk134",
"chzk1eg"
],
"score": [
3,
3,
2,
2
],
"text": [
"Torrents can be streamed as well. But what I believe you're asking is why people download torrents rather than stream. The main reason is that torrents are much higher quality, and have higher bandwidth than some file that someone put online.\n\nSince a torrent can have hundreds of seeders, the download is much faster than that of a stream. Plus, one could just delete the files when they're done.\n\nAnother reason is that torrents are more available than streamed media.",
"There are few currently-airing shows that offer legal streaming immediately after airing. The illegal sites rarely stream in HD, and even SD quality can be hard to find.",
"It depends. \n\nIf you're streaming via a bit torrent based system, such as Popcorn Time, you're more likely to get caught because the bit torrent protocol requires your IP address to be publicly available via the tracker. Downloading from more obscure torrents significantly reduces your chances of \"getting caught\"\n\nIf your streaming via a HTTP service (read website) the quality is probably terrible. \n\nSure, streaming is instantly gratifying, but unless you're using a slightly open bit torrent service, you're going to have a bad time. \n\nHaving the files on your computer isn't really a problem - chances are, if they're searching your computer, you're fucked anyway. ",
"Well, actually it does leave incriminating files. Check your browsers cache files. Guess what you will find in there. Your streaming activity is one thing. \n\nAlso, torrenting allows for better quality files for people with slower connections. AND you can stream some of them if you really want to. Needs a really damn fast connection to do that though with most good torrents. \n"
]
} | [] | [] | [
[],
[],
[],
[]
] |
||
49dao8 | if the constitution is supposed to be upheld at all times in government then why do politicians constantly get accused of doing things that are "unconstitutional" but are never penalized for it? | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/49dao8/eli5_if_the_constitution_is_supposed_to_be_upheld/ | {
"a_id": [
"d0qukdf",
"d0qulbc"
],
"score": [
6,
4
],
"text": [
"Because its rarely clear cut whether or not the things they are doing is unconstitutional. Its a matter of how you interpret it which is the supreme courts job. Someone would have to charge the politician with a crime and the supreme court eventually make a ruling.\n\nOften times its just politicians doing stuff that ends up in that gray area where maybe it is unconstitutional but theres an argument to be had both ways.",
"Just because someone accuses you of doing something unconstitutional, doesn't mean they were actually doing something unconstitutional. Plenty of politicians are sore losers who will accuse their opponents of everything, regardless of whether the accusation is actually true."
]
} | [] | [] | [
[],
[]
] |
||
9dxscz | why do american houses have such thin walls? | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/9dxscz/eli5_why_do_american_houses_have_such_thin_walls/ | {
"a_id": [
"e5ko3t1",
"e5ko66t",
"e5ko7u8",
"e5koayw",
"e5kollo",
"e5kot81"
],
"score": [
2,
3,
3,
2,
5,
2
],
"text": [
"😂❤️ besides the fact that those are movie sets which are constructed to be punched thru. Basically just drywall. You would have a hell of a time punching thru normal walls with studs and supports.",
"Well, it's a movie, so take it with a grain of salt. And second, standard American housing construction is comprised of wood frames, wood studs, and drywall. Assuming you don't hit a stud, drywall isn't terribly resistant (not as strong as brick, but probably much more resistant as movies make out). ",
"In new construction, walls are usually made out of studs and drywall. Drywall is made of gypsum, and it comes in thin sheets. You can punch through drywall fairly easily. It's used for interior walls because it's cheap, it's light, it's easy to install, and it's easy to paint and make it look nice.",
"Movie sets use cheaper walls designed to be broken through. Most actual homes are not like that, and are much harder to break through. ",
"If you are watching action movies it is just unrealistic. But it is fairly common in the US to have interior walls made of wooden framework with wood studs every so often (2x4 posts), covered with drywall. This is compressed gypsum and there is a layer on each side of the wall. Interior space within the wall is available for running wiring, plumbing, and can even be filled with insulation as well (although interior walls often don't need it).\n\nOf course it is possible to punch through gypsum board but they are also pretty easy to patch or replace, and if you need to access electrical wiring or plumbing it is more convenient than... whatever else you are imagining.",
"You're watching movies. The walls are means to break.\n\nI'm a standard American home built in the last 30 years, the studs are 16 inches apart and sheetrock covers it. Sheet rock is moderately easy to break through. In an older or specialty home, lath (thin strips of wood) and plaster is used. This is harder to break but cracks mildly easily. On certain walls in modern homes sheerwall is used behind sheetrock. This is a 3/4 inch piece of plywood placed behind the sheetrock to help muffle sound and vibration.\n\nAll of this goes for Europe as well. "
]
} | [] | [] | [
[],
[],
[],
[],
[],
[]
] |
||
bbrgcl | how are global fast-food chains such as mcdonalds and kfc able to maintain the same taste and quality around the world? | [deleted] | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/bbrgcl/eli5_how_are_global_fastfood_chains_such_as/ | {
"a_id": [
"ekkv5cs",
"eklcc68"
],
"score": [
8,
2
],
"text": [
"McDonald’s tastes different depending on where you are. When I was in Germany the Big Mac was a bit different from the ones in the U.K.",
"There's an intricate dance that goes on behind the scenes at the big chain restaurants. The company will have chefs on staff who create new menu items, or refine the recipes for existing ones. Marketers will also determine what sells in a particular region in order to settle on a menu.\n\nThe head office will then strike up deals with a handful of major suppliers who are not only big enough to ship ingredients in a large enough quantity, but also at a consistent quality and a consistently low price. \n\nA lot of the food is actually manufactured in factories before being packaged/frozen and shipped out to the individual locations. These factories have strict recipes they need to follow, and because there aren't very many of them, standards are easier to control. So you can pretty much guarantee that each bag of KFC's seasoned flour mix is going to contain the same 11 herbs and spices in the same ratios, regardless of its final destination. Same with a bag of McNuggets or burger patties. \n\nThe individual restaurants are also given strict guidelines over how food is to be heated and assembled. Obviously they'll be some minor variations, but since they all use the same building blocks, they'll mostly be the same. It's not really in their best interest to deviate too much as they'll a) get a strip taken off them from head office, and b) customers expect consistency from this sort of food. \n\nOf course things won't be the exact same wherever you go due to varying regional tastes. Which the above mentioned marketers determine. For example, BK's Kuro Burger, with its bun and cheese died black with squid ink, might fly in Japan but it not in the US. Just like your classic American beef Whopper isn't going to fly in India. Though the taste and menu items are probably all going to be the same in a single country or cultural region."
]
} | [] | [] | [
[],
[]
] |
|
1korzn | the apocalypse according to the bible | I'm an atheist who is very interested in learning more about armageddon or the apocalypse as stated in the bible. Events, important characters and any predicted outcomes? Literally all I have been told is that Christ comes back, the four horsemen are released and thats it! | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/1korzn/eli5_the_apocalypse_according_to_the_bible/ | {
"a_id": [
"cbr2xzn",
"cbr34qr",
"cbr4nwi",
"cbr5efo"
],
"score": [
2,
3,
2,
3
],
"text": [
"God gave the apostle Paul a vision of the end of the world, hence why the book is called \"Revelations\". There's a lot of symbolism analyzed by a lot of people that understand it way better than I do, but the parts I do get are that there's a battle between the forces of Heaven and Hell that causes the apocalypse. I think the four horsemen are involved with that. When Jesus comes back, he takes all that have died and deemed worth to heaven to join him and his father",
"In addition to /u/ferlgatr's response and if you're interested, you can read the entire book of Revelation which discusses the end times [here](_URL_0_). There are multiple versions from which to choose, I have linked the Message, which is not necessarily as accurate as other versions, but is written in \"today's language.\"",
"The Biblical account of the apocalypse is contained almost entirely within the book of Revelations. Revelations, in turn, is probably as dizzying a maze of symbolism as exists in the entire faith. Unsurprisingly, different people offer different interpretations.\n\nYou have the basics right. The common elements are: Christ's return, the establishment of the Kingdom of Heaven on Earth, the Horsemen, the Rapture, the Thousand Year Peace, the Banishing of Satan - these are the major plot points, so to speak. But putting them together is another matter entirely. There are numerous schools of thought on what-happens-when, and the whole thing is very much up to interpretation.\n\nThe 'pedia article you're looking for is [here](_URL_0_). You'll get a better understanding reading that (as well as Revelations itself - which isn't long) than you will here.",
"Its hard to pin down because so much of \"the Revelation to the Apostle John\" (the revealing) are metaphors (I don't know if that's the right word). \n\nFirst, let's start with Jesus himself to understand bible metaphors. In the Old Testament days, there were prophecies of the messiah who would come in the future. Jesus wasn't born in December, he was born in spring at the time of the spring lambs. (The early church celebrated his birth on May 16, and the shepherds were watching their flocks by night when the angel appeared to announce the birth; and that was only done when the ewes were birthing in spring).\n\nFor centuries Jews had been sacrificing lambs during the Passover, and touching the blood on the door-posts and lintles (some suggest that by doing this they had to unknowingly make the shape of the cross, hundreds of years before the Romans began crucifying). In this way the Passover traditions were a prophecy to show who the real messiah was when he showed up.\n\nSome people believe that the events of Joshua's life and the fall of Jericho in the old testament are a prophecy about the apocalypse. In Hebrew \"Joshua\" is the same name as \"Jesus\" in Greek (the new testament was written in Greek, the language of international communication in the first century AD).\n\nThe book of Daniel and Revelation talk about a seven-year period at the end. The middle of that time (3-1/2 years in) is the Abomination of [that causes] Desolation (AoD). A new world leader has helped the world survive a difficult time, and even emerge into a 3-1/2 year long period of recovery, peace, and prosperity. Then...he sets up and idol of himself in the rebuilt temple to God in Jerusalem, and orders the whole world to worship him. The new world leader is revealed to be the anti-Christ. The setting up of a pagan idol in the holy temple is an \"abomination\" and the apocalypse that follows is the resulting \"desolation\".\n\nThe next 3-1/2 years are a slowly escalating series of global disasters, killing almost everyone on Earth. There are some vague verses that depending on how they are interpreted, suggest that Christians will be pulled out of the Earth into the spirit world. The word \"Rapture\" is not in the bible, but it is the phrase that was coined to label the event of believers being removed. A few believe the Rapture will happen at the end of the 7 years, some believe at the middle (3-1/2 years) and most rapturists believe the Christians will be raptured at the beginning. \n\nThere are four places where the number 666 is mentioned. Twice it is mentioned as the \"number of the beast\" which everyone must have on their hand during the end days if they wish to buy or sell. It is also mentioned twice as the salary of Solomon (The third king of Israel after settling in Palestine). It has been speculated that Solomons salary is a hint that his life is a prophecy about the anti-Christ. \n\nMany centuries before Solomon, Jacobs life led Abrahams entire family to live in Egypt during a famine, which then turned to slavery, the exodus to return, living as nomads in Palestine, and finally to settle with Hebron as their capital (this is why they are called Hebrews). Abraham is the father of Arabs and Jews, and out of all of his decendants, his grandson Jacob was blessed and was renamed \"Israel\" by an angel (It's Hebrew for \"struggles with god\").\n\nIn the same way, after Jesus was crucified, the Romans evicted the Jews from Palestine because of all the revolts (revolts because of prophecies in the Old Testament) in 73-AD? the Jews were spread out across the Roman empire so there weren't enough in any one place to revolt (The Diaspora [Dispersion]).\n\nAt the end of WW-one, the British took control of Palestine from Muslim Turkey and allowed Jews to return there if they wanted. Jews had been oppressed in many nations, so they left their recent homes to return to Palestine.\n\nIn May 1948, the British pulled out of Palestine, and Israel declared themselves as a nation, their neighbors attacked, and Israel survived, though they didn't have control of Jerusalem (Israel was shaped like a \"C\"). In 1968, there was a war, and Israel gained control of Jerusalem. All of the materials to rebuild the Temple on the original site have been made, but await political stability to assemble it. Doing it now would start a war.\n\nMetaphors: During the period of the Judges, the people of Israel were nomads, when Saul became the first king of Israel, his reign is a prophecy of the 1918-1949 era, when David became a war-king and moved the capital from Hebron to Jerusalem, his reign is a prophecy about 1949-rapture, and when Solomon became king, his reign is a prophecy about the 7 years, which includes the apocalypse.\n\nSolomon married foreign princesses to form political alliances with his neighbors, he thus secured peace and prosperity at the price of allowing heathen wives to worship pagan gods in Israel.\n\nI can chat for quite a while about this, and more metaphors if anyone is interested, but...whenever you get two scholars together to discuss an interpretation of prophecy, you end up with three opinions.\n\nInterpretation is interesting, but any speculation presented should be studied by yourself to see if you agree with any given point.\n\n\"Armageddon\" is Hebrew for \"hill of Megiddo\". Megiddo is a city in Northern Israel and in prophecy is the scene of the final battle at the end of the apocalypse.\n\n"
]
} | [] | [] | [
[],
[
"http://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=Revelation+1&version=MSG"
],
[
"http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Christian_eschatology"
],
[]
] |
|
6noe1p | why is open-mouth breathing often associated to lower intelligence? is there any biological or behavioral link between the two? | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/6noe1p/eli5_why_is_openmouth_breathing_often_associated/ | {
"a_id": [
"dkayuyz",
"dkb0932",
"dkb4svv",
"dkbr9oc",
"dkbx5zv"
],
"score": [
58,
238,
29,
10,
2
],
"text": [
"It is a common stereotype, but the only serious connections I can locate are [here](_URL_0_) where users point out (1) it means you're uncultured and (2) it could be correlated with the physical symptoms of Down's Syndrome.\n\nI also found some articles that suggest mouth breathing is correlated with sleep apnea, and people with sleep apnea are often tired and spaced out -- seems like a tenuous connection though.",
"It's part of the \"boorish brute\" stereotype that's roughly as old as social classes are. Laborers who have to expend lots of energy throughout the day will end up panting heavily and loudly over the course of their work. More \"refined\" individuals accustomed to leisure are more likely to be able to placidly go about their time breathing through their noses. Lateral stereotypes stemming from this phenomenon includes colorism in Southeast Asia and grooming conventions around fingernails and hand calluses in the West and elsewhere.\n\nOver time, rules of etiquette codified not breathing through your mouth, and the brutish stereotype of mouth breathing was further entrenched into what we see today.",
"I think that \"mouth breather\" might be a more figurative term for someone who is \"slack jawed,\" meaning inattentive or constantly bewildered (Webster's refers to \"slack jawed yokels\"), rather than a literal commentary on someone's breathing habits.\n\nI found a couple of sites expressing the same opinion, but nothing \"official\" yet.",
"Mouth breathing has nothing to due with intelligence. Mouth breathing is more likely due to clogged sinuses. When the flow of air is restricted your instinct is to breathe through your mouth. Someone might make the conclusion that this restriction of air causes a mental disability, however, mouth breathing takes in more air than nose breathing because the mouth and throat are wider than the nose passage. Also heavy exertion also results in mouth breathing due to the need for an increase in the amount of air required. ",
"I really don't know about the answers here... A lot of them seem based around cultural reasons or through extrapolating connections between things as if it was a super conscious premeditated response, which i do not think is what you feel. \n\nI would imagine that it has to do more with how much the mouth contributes to facial expressions and by having it open it makes the face look more blank and thoughtless, devoid of any expressions. "
]
} | [] | [] | [
[
"https://www.reddit.com/r/OutOfTheLoop/comments/2lrqbr/why_are_mouth_breathers_considered_less/"
],
[],
[],
[],
[]
] |
||
9dp2pd | how does tinting a car's windows help keep it cooler inside during the summer, since dark objects absorb more of the sun's heat? | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/9dp2pd/eli5_how_does_tinting_a_cars_windows_help_keep_it/ | {
"a_id": [
"e5j26zi",
"e5j28e8",
"e5j2np8"
],
"score": [
5,
2,
27
],
"text": [
"The tint film is actually multimple diffrent sheet sandwhiched together. In general youll have a dark colored film to block/absorb visble light and youll also have a reflective film that helps reflect visible/infrared light. Both stop visble and infrared light from heating up the inside of the car by reflecting away or dispersing the heat generated by the light within the glass.",
"Think of it like color vs light. To have white light, its every spectrum of light. But to have white colors, its the absence of any color.\n\nSo for a window, the darker the color, the more light it absorbs, meaning the LESS light passes through the glass and into the car. Therfore not allowing more energy to heat up the air inside.",
"The heat is absorbed in the glass, making the glass hot. Fortunately, the glass is outside, where the air cools it. That's much better than making the upholstery hot, that's trapped in a sealed up car with no way to get out."
]
} | [] | [] | [
[],
[],
[]
] |
||
o8gli | why is evolution considered a theory and not a scientific law? | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/o8gli/why_is_evolution_considered_a_theory_and_not_a/ | {
"a_id": [
"c3f7u6s",
"c3f9lvr",
"c3fabu2",
"c3fdmjt",
"c3fgoja"
],
"score": [
41,
12,
2,
2,
3
],
"text": [
"Google says: \n > Evolution, and most of Biology, cannot be expressed in a concise mathematical equation, so it is referred to as a theory. A scientific law is not \"better\" or \"more accurate\" than a scientific theory. A law explains what will happen under certain circumstances, while a theory explains how it happens.\n\n[_URL_1_](_URL_0_)",
"* A scientific theory gives an explanation of how something works.\n\n* A scientific law simply states how something has been observed to work under certain conditions.",
"People get theory and hypothesis muddled a lot. Theory is something that has been proven, hypothesis is just what you expect to happen and you test it out. But a lot of people use theory interchangeably in place of hypothesis- which isn't right ",
"Folks use the incorrect meaning of \"theory\"\n\nAs you are aware many words have more than one meaning. \n\neg \n\n1. the word \"Tear\" can mean ripping of paper or water from the eyes.\n\n2. the word \"love\" can mean sexual love, bromance, love for a pet, love for your family or the love a man has for a fine cuban cigar.\n\n3. Check out the definiation of the word \"the\". It has [18 meanings](_URL_0_).\n\n\nThe general public sees the word \"thoery\" as something that has yet to be proven i.e. My theory is that Bob likes Sally. In science this meaning is a \"hypothesis\"\n\nIn Science the meaning of the word \"theory\" is pretty much \"this is as true as we can make out and by gee, we are 99.99999% sure it is the TRUTH\"\n\nOf course the religious fundamentalists (which is the unsaid part of your question) use the incorrect definition of the word \"thoery\" when they say that evolution is only a \"theory\". By their reasoning then gravity is only a \"theory\", and thus when you punch them in the face, it's ok because Newtons laws of motion (which is only a \"theory\") will not effect them, so they won't get hurt.\n\nReally, the whole \"theory\" argument is semantic one, and I wish more folks (media, politicians etc) understood that words can have more than one meaning.\n\nDon't get me started on Gay \"Marriage\" - my soapbox will collapse under the weight of my opinions.\n\n \n\n",
"Only sith deal in absolutes."
]
} | [] | [] | [
[
"http://www.evolutionfaq.com/faq/why-isnt-evolution-considered-law",
"Evolutionfaq.com"
],
[],
[],
[
"http://www.google.com.au/search?sourceid=chrome&ie=UTF-8&q=define%3A+the#hl=en&q=the&tbs=dfn:1&tbo=u&sa=X&ei=6sUKT6rwNc2zrAfF9qH0Dw&ved=0CC8QkQ4&bav=on.2,or.r_gc.r_pw.r_cp.,cf.osb&fp=ea91701b1741a412&biw=1920&bih=1075"
],
[]
] |
||
nacwd | social security and what it implicates | What does it mean, what does it do, when was it invented, what was the original use, and what is it being used for right now? | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/nacwd/eli5_social_security_and_what_it_implicates/ | {
"a_id": [
"c37jero",
"c37jero"
],
"score": [
9,
9
],
"text": [
"Wow, this is a big topic.\n \nIn the US, Social Security was a program started by President Franklin Roosevelt in the midst of the Great Depression. The original idea was that the country should provide for those who could no longer provide for themselves after years of work. Everyone would pay into a fund, and then after you retired, you could get a monthly payment out of the fund to make sure you didn't go homeless in your old age.\n\nOver the years Social Security has been expanded to include the disabled and some other people that would have difficulty providing for themselves. \n\nIt's paid for by a payroll tax, which means the government takes (normally) 6.2% of your paycheck from you and the same amount from your employer. If you make over $106,000, you're only taxed on the first $106k. This is supposed to be so rich people don't pay tons of money when they won't get very much after they retire (There is a limit to how much you get per month from social security). \n\nCurrently, there is a tax holiday due to the recession and we're only paying 4.2%. There is debate in congress over whether to lower or raise this amount. \n\nThe money was originally supposed to go into it's own fund, but when times were tough sometimes Congress would borrow from that fund. Congress now owes a lot of money back to the Social Security fund. Some people think that means SS will not be around in years to come, others say there is no problem and the program has enough money for decades. Even then, sometimes the age when you start drawing SS gets increased to deal with longer lifespans.\n\nAs an aside, some people say that the average lifespan was shorter than the age when you started getting SS, so the program was never meant to pay for people long term. While it is true the average lifespan was lower when the program started, that had more to do with infant mortality than how long people in the workforce expected to live.\n\nToday, social security continues paying old people and the disabled, and workers still put some amount of their paycheck into it. Some politicians would like to get rid of the program, some would like to shore it up so it's around for further generations, but since old people get SS, and old people vote in droves, no politician wants to screw it up (unless they can blame the other guy). ",
"Wow, this is a big topic.\n \nIn the US, Social Security was a program started by President Franklin Roosevelt in the midst of the Great Depression. The original idea was that the country should provide for those who could no longer provide for themselves after years of work. Everyone would pay into a fund, and then after you retired, you could get a monthly payment out of the fund to make sure you didn't go homeless in your old age.\n\nOver the years Social Security has been expanded to include the disabled and some other people that would have difficulty providing for themselves. \n\nIt's paid for by a payroll tax, which means the government takes (normally) 6.2% of your paycheck from you and the same amount from your employer. If you make over $106,000, you're only taxed on the first $106k. This is supposed to be so rich people don't pay tons of money when they won't get very much after they retire (There is a limit to how much you get per month from social security). \n\nCurrently, there is a tax holiday due to the recession and we're only paying 4.2%. There is debate in congress over whether to lower or raise this amount. \n\nThe money was originally supposed to go into it's own fund, but when times were tough sometimes Congress would borrow from that fund. Congress now owes a lot of money back to the Social Security fund. Some people think that means SS will not be around in years to come, others say there is no problem and the program has enough money for decades. Even then, sometimes the age when you start drawing SS gets increased to deal with longer lifespans.\n\nAs an aside, some people say that the average lifespan was shorter than the age when you started getting SS, so the program was never meant to pay for people long term. While it is true the average lifespan was lower when the program started, that had more to do with infant mortality than how long people in the workforce expected to live.\n\nToday, social security continues paying old people and the disabled, and workers still put some amount of their paycheck into it. Some politicians would like to get rid of the program, some would like to shore it up so it's around for further generations, but since old people get SS, and old people vote in droves, no politician wants to screw it up (unless they can blame the other guy). "
]
} | [] | [] | [
[],
[]
] |
|
f0a2wz | what the scientific explanation as to why you are not supposed to put kitchen knives in a dishwasher? how is this any different than hand washing them? | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/f0a2wz/eli5_what_the_scientific_explanation_as_to_why/ | {
"a_id": [
"fgsdlsu",
"fgsg7sm"
],
"score": [
7,
3
],
"text": [
"The main reason is that your knife should only be wet for the minute or so it takes to clean it, then it should be dried. Having water sitting on there will make it rust and damage whatever finish it might have. Dishwashing tablets often have more salts in them compared to dish washing liquid which can eat away at metal. If your knife has a handle made from a separate material water can seep in the joints and corrode the glue or screws, which will be made of far cheaper metal than the blade. \n\nDishwashers will also jostle a knife around and the sharp edge can be chipped easily, and some people say the heat is high enough to warp a temper but I think that's a pop cultural myth thing.",
"Rust. \n\nHigh quality knives are made of a different kind of steel than flatware. In order to hold thinner sharper points, and to be able to handle sharpening, they are made from steel with less chromium and no surface coating — which protects from rusting. \n\nHot water over time will release free oxygen (unlike O2 which is in the air) which will lead to faster rusting."
]
} | [] | [] | [
[],
[]
] |
||
64jto6 | how will a self-driving car react when facing a choice: killing the driver or a pedestrian? | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/64jto6/eli5how_will_a_selfdriving_car_react_when_facing/ | {
"a_id": [
"dg2nfcc",
"dg2njsf",
"dg2nt17",
"dg2o467",
"dg2pi6l"
],
"score": [
4,
2,
2,
2,
2
],
"text": [
"There wouldn't be that kind of decision baked into it, deciding which lives to kill. It would follow the standard programming for collision avoidance. \n\nIf it detected something heading toward it, it would brake, or steer into an available space to avoid the collision, or both.\n\nNothing is perfect. Humans do this already. If a ball bounces into the road, you stop or swerve. Hopefully paying attention as you're supposed to at the lanes and traffic around you so you always have somewhere to go in such a situation. An automated car would do the same thing.\n\nThe default solution would be to hit nothing. It doesn't matter if its a person or a vehicle. If the sensors detect a probable collision it would slow or move to prevent it. A person is just another thing not to hit. You would have code that also makes sure there is an out in a situation, such as making sure cars are spaced appropriately enough that there's an escape lane, proper distance between vehicles, and everything else.\n\nAre things perfect? No, but people aren't perfect either. Accidents happen, usually because of someone doing something stupid, like running into a street.",
"It won't have to. The reason humans can't stop in time is usually because it reaction time is terrible and we are bad at responding ideally under pressure.",
"This is actually a commonly cited ethical dilemma about AI and self-driving cars and as an argument for government to step in and set some more guidelines about this sort of thing. Does a self-driving car serve the passengers first, or is it just a raw numbers game? If the car decides to kill a pedestrian, does the family have the right to sue anybody?\n\nNon-philosophically, in 99% of situations, there's not going to be an obvious \"Will kill me or will kill them\" scenario. In the one you cited, it would likely drive into the building as you're much more likely to survive than the car.",
"(From what I've heard self-driving cars don't have full control over the vehicle, so that a human being can take over if required.)\n\nSeeing as how they are programmed to follow the speed limit and based on current design where they have a 360° camera on top of them. It'd be clear to say that the car would slow down to either come to a complete stop or attempt at trying to avoid the person or atleast minimise the impact (if it's impossible to avoid the person).\n\nHowever if the person was to appear out of thin air, then the car would have no chance in stopping in time, which would result in (depending on the speed limit) either the pedestrian being killed or surviving the impact, but is required to be taken to the hospital. The person/people in the car may receive injuries or could end up in a fatal crash (again purely based on how fast the self-driving car is traveling).\n\nBut seeing as how a human being can take over at anytime, it would then depend on the person who is behind the wheel.",
"Who pays for it?\n\nBecause the driver pays for the car the car is never going to do anything deliberately unsafe. It can stomp on the breaks but unless the sides are clear it will not swerve to avoid something.\n\nOn top of that a SDC isn't going to make value calls. A pedestrian is going to be handled in the exact same manner as a bag of garbage. Even if you could have a SDC that recognized the difference between person and object and was programmed to respond differently to person vs. object in certain situations, it wouldn't put the driver's life in any more risk than he or she is already in. "
]
} | [] | [] | [
[],
[],
[],
[],
[]
] |
||
2b0wqe | what happens if you're sent to jail for a crime you didn't commit and evidence that you're innocent pops up years after you get out of jail? | I just finished watching Need for Speed and the thought occurred to me. If someone is sent to jail for 10 years for murder and after they get out evidence pops up that proves they aren't the murderer what happens? Does the government do anything to apologize for wasting your life or do they just ignore it? | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/2b0wqe/eli5what_happens_if_youre_sent_to_jail_for_a/ | {
"a_id": [
"cj0p3sb",
"cj0p41t",
"cj0pfkg",
"cj0rk5g",
"cj0toz6",
"cj0tqpq",
"cj0vntk",
"cj0xr27"
],
"score": [
7,
114,
7,
29,
2,
7,
8,
2
],
"text": [
"this situation has happened plenty of times in real life. they get reparations based on how long they were imprisoned for.. it depends on a case by case basis. some states have statues, _URL_0_",
"If it becomes known, then it's wiped from your record and you get reimbursed for the time spent in prison.\n\nBut that varies from state to state.",
"According to the law you're to be immediately released after your acquittal which doesnt always happen. Some individuals spend years in prison AFTER their aquittal.\n\nYour apology would be up to several million dollars...\n\n......from the lawsuit you will later drop on whatever law enforcement entity that put you behind bars in the first place",
"Some people get millions of dollars, others nothing. Some get released immediately, some unfortunately do not. The worst is false child sexual assault allegations. Almost always you are assumed guilty, and must be proven innocent, and pedophiles don't make friends well in prison. ",
"Similar situation: the movie 'Double Jeopardy'\n\nSpoiler (sort of): You can't be tried for the same murder twice, so what happens when your husband frames you for his murder, but he's not really dead...?",
"In some cases, you won't be reimbursed at all. On the contrary, you'll be in debt: \n_URL_0_",
"[One redditor who was in jail for 18 years for a murder he didn't commit actually had an AMA](_URL_0_). This isn't really ELI5 but check it out if you're interested.",
"You hook up with a team of crack commandos, and promptly escape from a maximum security prison. You then fight crime in the LA underground as soldiers of fortune."
]
} | [] | [] | [
[
"http://www.cnn.com/interactive/2012/03/us/table.wrongful.convictions/"
],
[],
[],
[],
[],
[
"http://abcnews.go.com/US/alan-northrop-rape-bill-compensate-wrongly-convicted/story?id=12792640"
],
[
"http://www.reddit.com/r/IAmA/comments/27ehyu/i_spent_18_years_in_prison_for_a_murder_i_didnt/"
],
[]
] |
|
b4b1hy | how do gpg keys work and how are fingerprints verified? | I do have my own public and private keys but I don't understand how they're used to verify identities or what signing someone else's key will do and what is the point for having fingerprints.
And how do you verify a fingerprint someone you know online gives you because for all intents and purposes it may not be actually theirs. | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/b4b1hy/eli5_how_do_gpg_keys_work_and_how_are/ | {
"a_id": [
"ej5inuy"
],
"score": [
2
],
"text": [
"Without getting too mathematical, your private and public key are generated in such a way that:\n\n\\- When you use your private key to encrype a message, only your public key can decrypt it.\n\n\\- When someone uses your public key to encrype a message, only your private key can decrypt it.\n\nWhat is that good for? Well some can send you a secret message using your public key and only you can read it.\n\nAnd using your public key anyone can be certain that your private key encrypted the message they got from you. That is a Signature, or some called a fingerprint.\n\n & #x200B;\n\nHow can you be certain that the public key your friend gave you is actually their public key and not a key someone elses? Well that is where certificates come into play. Your friend goes to a certificate provider whom you both trusth and sufficiently assures the provider that the public key is his and his alone. So when you get the public key of your friend you go match it against the certificate.\n\nAnd that is why some websites sometimes come up as 'not trusted', because the websites give you a public key, but the certificate they point you at is not from any certificate provider that your browser trusts.\n\nAnd that is the gist of it."
]
} | [] | [] | [
[]
] |
|
5e6yni | why has the usa's money supply (m0) increased so much since 2008? | Here is a historical chart of our M0 assets: _URL_0_
This seems like extreme inflation, am I wrong?
What exactly is going on here? | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/5e6yni/eli5_why_has_the_usas_money_supply_m0_increased/ | {
"a_id": [
"daao53x"
],
"score": [
2
],
"text": [
"M0 is the measure of monetary reserves, which the Fed creates when it makes asset purchases. The increase is mostly due to it's large scale asset purchases, ie. quantitative easing. \n \nGrowth of M2, or broad money, has been much more subdued as shown [here](_URL_1_). Also the velocity of M2 - ie. the rate at which it changes hands, has dropped significantly, shown [here](_URL_0_).\n \nIt's important to realize that the term inflation got it's reputation at a time when it was believed the amount of money in circulation was directly proportional to prices, something called Quantity Theory of Money. That is, if you inflate the supply of money, prices go up accordingly. Or simply inflation = rising prices. But after many decades of observation we know that this is not the case, and there are many other factors at play. Here is the negligible [price inflation](_URL_2_) that occurred at the same time M0 was increasing drastically.\n \ntl;dr - monetary inflation =/= price inflation"
]
} | [] | [
"http://www.zerohedge.com/sites/default/files/images/user196978/imageroot/2016/05/19/monetarybase_fredgraphjuly13.png"
] | [
[
"https://fred.stlouisfed.org/series/M2V",
"https://fred.stlouisfed.org/series/M2",
"https://fred.stlouisfed.org/series/FPCPITOTLZGUSA"
]
] |
|
3qwvx8 | why is this specific sound effect of children laughing and playing used over and over and over again in movies/tv shows? | _URL_0_
I feel like every time there are kids laughing and playing, this sound is used! | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/3qwvx8/eli5_why_is_this_specific_sound_effect_of/ | {
"a_id": [
"cwj0v6h",
"cwj3ewj",
"cwj5gap"
],
"score": [
10,
19,
2
],
"text": [
"Also the goddamn rusty door sound effect, it's everywhere. tv series, even modern movies apparently use the same sample cd set.\n\nthere is also a weird unrealistic \"air sucking in before explosion\" sort of whipping implosion sound that is used for every explosion in some movies. Like air somehow knows that shit is going to explode beforehand.\n\nthere is also a loop of police radio, that is used all the fucking time, i guess the thinking is that we are not listening to backround sounds so carefully, but they use the same sample ALL THE FUCKING TIME.\n\n\n_URL_0_",
"Recording new sound effects is expensive, so to save money, sound designers pull unimportant / generic sound effects from an existing library of pre-recorded stuff. You're not supposed to notice it, but sometimes certain sound effects get so overused that they become a joke. The Wilhelm Scream is the most famous example.",
"Stock footage. If a studio has a sound in stock, why go and record new stuff? That means scheduling more time and more people. It's easier for productions to just use the stock stuff. \n\nThis is why you see the same \"Extra\" cars all the time. Look for that black BMW 7..shows up like 7 times in Die Hard with a Vengence, but also in a dozen other films. How many times can The Walking Dead use that same old gray Taurus? Same deal. "
]
} | [] | [
"https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yedSDFtSmJw"
] | [
[
"https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=afnR1C7HTh8"
],
[],
[]
] |
|
13fyoj | how people get caught not having a tv license?(uk) | How do they know you don't have a license? Has anyone ever been caught and fined? Surely unless they come into your house and check they can't know if you're watching TV or not? | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/13fyoj/eli5_how_people_get_caught_not_having_a_tv/ | {
"a_id": [
"c73m005",
"c73m1p6",
"c73mn4c",
"c73ms19",
"c73n84w",
"c73n97k",
"c73p167"
],
"score": [
4,
5,
2,
2,
3,
8,
2
],
"text": [
"They knock on your door and you feel really guilty and admit you should pay.",
"wtf is a TV license...-edit-\n\nNot sure why I'm being downvoted. I actually Do not know what a TV license is. I'm canadian. We aren't fascists about television here.",
"I didn't seem to know anyone who bought a license as far as I can tell as a American it was the honor system. How ever I did live in a college town.",
"I think it's done on a post code system, if they know that that address doesn't have a licence they'll send letters. I'm not sure how they find out if you're watching without having a licence but then they send a warning and then I think they come round to check to see if you have a tv. ",
" > How do they know you don't have a license?\n\nWhen you buy a licence, your address is added to the big list of 'addresses with TV licences'. You're is also on the big list of 'people who live in places'. If it's on the second but not the first, they know you don't have a tv licence.\n\n > Has anyone ever been caught and fined?\n\nYes.\n\n > Surely unless they come into your house and check they can't know if you're watching TV or not?\n\nThis is correct, so they actually do send people around houses. They also send lots of threatening letters, often with statements that are at best distortions of the truth in order to try and scare you into paying. They don't actually have much legal power except to fine you if they can show you use a TV, so (for instance) you don't have to let a TV inspector in if they do come to your door.",
"They can't. \n\nThey say they can detect people without a licence, but it's bullshit. The only way they know is by knocking on your door and getting you to admit to it. And they have no legal right to enter your property unless you allow them. \n\nThere was a website knocking around a few years that, amongst other things, proved that the vans they use to \"detect\" non-licence payers did not have any such equipment and that despite the TV Licensing Company's claims to the contrary, they're a subsidiary of the BBC and not independent. \n\nIt's another tax. Until we have the option to block BBC channels, then it is not an \"optional licence\" it is a mandatory tax. ",
"I'm sorry, but this reminded me of \"The Young Ones\"...."
]
} | [] | [] | [
[],
[],
[],
[],
[],
[],
[]
] |
|
1df20m | why did certain countries like the usa and china experience an immense population boom in the 21st century, while countries like the united kingdom, france and germany barely saw any population increase at all? | edit: 20th century, not the 21st! Sorry. | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/1df20m/eli5_why_did_certain_countries_like_the_usa_and/ | {
"a_id": [
"c9q3wov",
"c9ponbp",
"c9ppfq6",
"c9pphss",
"c9pq5an",
"c9pxkcs"
],
"score": [
2,
461,
4,
5,
37,
6
],
"text": [
"You accidentally THE MOST CRUCIAL KEYSTROKE IN THE ENTIRE TITLE.\n\nThat being said, without immigration the US' population would be slightly declining. Fun fact.",
"It's not really a population boom per se but a gradual increase. Population booms are mostly a thing of the past (outside sub-Saharan Africa). Two factors are immigrants and birth rates.\n\nThe US takes on a lot of immigrants, more than any country on earth, both legal and illegal. They take on a million legal immigrants and an unknown amount of illegal immigrants a year. Canada, it should be noted takes the highest *percentage* of immigrants. The US has citizenship by birth, so immigrants that come here and have children automatically gain citizenship for them and tend to stay. Generally the rule of thumb is, immigrants come from poorer countries and the birthrate is higher so the women tend to have more children than regular American women. This only lasts one generation as immigrants assimilate very quickly in America, but this is the reason for the increasing population. \n\nChina is not experiencing a population boom, in fact, China's population is leveling off. You can call it good or bad, but China's birth policies are working. China's birthrate is very low now and by the next decade, India will pass China as the most populated country on earth. A sad side effect is that many little girls that were to be born were aborted, abandoned, given away or killed after birth because of the cultural preference for a \"male heir\" for a family. This has really messed up the gender ratio in China and there are an estimated 50 million Chinese men who will NEVER marry. That's more men than in all of Germany who will be single for life unless they manage to find brides overseas. At current birth rates, China's population will start to shrink and some estimates have China with 300 million fewer citizens at the end of the century.\n\n[As for other countries, the birth rate rate worldwide \\(outside of sub-Saharan Africa\\) is falling dramatically.](_URL_0_) The world's population is actually leveling off and is normal. I can almost promise you that in 20 years from now the map I linked will mostly be light blue. Countries need basic and cheap unskilled manual labor and they use immigration to offset the need for this. It depends how much immigration they want to receive and that is the main reason for population increases, not births so much anymore.\n\n\n\n",
"[source](_URL_0_)\n\nhere is a source for breaking down reasons for changing populations.\n\nLong story short, US had a huge amount if immigration, while Europe had a large amount of net emigration. 2 World Wars that also devestated certain countries also had an impact, but much less important than just the immigration trends. ",
"Let me see if I can help.... \n\n > WWI and WWII probably had something to do with it. I mean about 400,000 people died at the Battle of the Somme in WWI alone. I think something like 1/4 of a generation of women would go without marrying. Not including the disfigured, disabled, and psychologically unstable who would never find a mate.\n\n_URL_0_\n\nAlthough, Russia suffered huge losses during these wars (They are the reason WWII was won by the allies. The US did not play as a big a role as people believe it did) yet still experienced a growing population through the second half of the century.\n\n > Decolonization- Newly decolonized states were kind of left of their own by their former colonizers. Many states opted to pursue welfare systems as opposed to maximizing industrialization, capital, etc. like in the West. Essentially, new states opted to make education and healthcare a right, not a privilege.\nTherefore, people in these states could (artificially?) afford more children and knew that the children and parents would receive care and education from the state. In addition to nice subsidies on oil, food, etc.\n(Some might say this came back to bite them economically, especially after oil prices spiked in the 1970s and the IMF/WB rushed to avoid loan default... but that's another story)\n\nTL;DR:\nIt may not be that these places did not have a population boom, it may just be that their \"baby booms\" were not as marked, expensive, or publicized as other places.\n",
"Actually, much of the Western world experienced a [baby boom](_URL_0_) following World War II, including most of Western Europe.",
"Let's not forget that the UK, France and Germany all had population booms in the 19th century as a result of increased food production, which provided the labor capital required for their industrial revolutions. The US and China were just late to the party."
]
} | [] | [] | [
[],
[
"http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Total_fertility_rate"
],
[
"http://www.eupedia.com/forum/threads/25061-Historical-populations-of-Europe-changing-proportions"
],
[
"http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battle_of_the_Somme"
],
[
"http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Post%E2%80%93World_War_II_baby_boom"
],
[]
] |
|
2sroli | if photons are mass-less and travel forever without friction, if i point my flashlight at the sky, do they travel forever? | friction with the atmosphere, bends the light?
My flashlight in space would be like a mini sun?
why does my flashlight with weak batteries on only produce a dim beam of light that does not extend far, what is exactly happening to the photons then? | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/2sroli/eli5_if_photons_are_massless_and_travel_forever/ | {
"a_id": [
"cns838t"
],
"score": [
2
],
"text": [
"Within the atmosphere, the photons are being absorbed by the molecules in the air. Those that are not absorbed are scattered, which is why in dusty air you can see the dust dancing in the air - it's the light bouncing off the dust particles and flying off in different directions. The flashlight also doesn't send all the photons out in the same direction, so they spread into a cone. A laser has them more focused, which is why a laser's effective range is much larger.\n\nNow, light does spread out ('diffract') a tiny bit on its own. But that's not at all the dominant effect until you're in space."
]
} | [] | [] | [
[]
] |
|
duvpa4 | what's the difference between veteran's day and memorial day? | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/duvpa4/eli5_whats_the_difference_between_veterans_day/ | {
"a_id": [
"f78isyn"
],
"score": [
6
],
"text": [
"My understanding is that Veteran's Day is meant to focus on the living veterans of the armed service, while Memorial Day is meant to focus on the _deceased_ members of the armed service who gave their lives in defense of the country.\n\nPractically, however, there is little difference."
]
} | [] | [] | [
[]
] |
||
nyvkb | how computers turn 0's and 1's into text, video, and other programs/applications. | I'm having difficulty conceptualizing how computers "read" binary code, and translate into useful and understandable information. ELI5? | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/nyvkb/eli5_how_computers_turn_0s_and_1s_into_text_video/ | {
"a_id": [
"c3d13im",
"c3d18cm",
"c3d1c4h",
"c3d1pho",
"c3d1rtr",
"c3d1yqy",
"c3d25ig",
"c3d27je",
"c3d2qy5",
"c3d2rl9",
"c3d2tpt",
"c3d2vx8",
"c3d3u7w",
"c3d75dj",
"c3d7fym",
"c3d7s7a"
],
"score": [
299,
6,
10,
6,
5,
105,
3,
4,
3,
9,
2,
4,
2,
2,
2,
2
],
"text": [
"Imagine you're sitting at a desk with three levers in front of you, each one can be \"on\" or \"off.\" Each lever controls something different in the room you are sitting in. The first switch turns the lights on or off, the second switch turns on or off some music, and the third turns on or off the television.\n\nNow lets say I told you to \"turn on the TV and the music, but keep the lights off.\" You would turn the first lever to off, and the other two to on. If we say that \"0\" means off and \"1\" means on, then that means in this example the first lever is 0, and the second two are 1. So you could write that very simply as the following sequence:\n\n 011\n\nWhich means that the lights are off, but the music and TV are on. If I were to tell you to turn the lights on, but turn the TV and music off the equivalent sequence would be:\n\n 100\n\nIf they were all on:\n\n 111\n\nIf they were all off:\n\n 000\n\nIn this way, you could execute a whole bunch of commands if I just sent you a string of three numbers. So if instead of telling you what to do in words, I just gave you a slip of paper with 0's and 1's on it, each of which corresponded to one of the switches, you would know what to do.\n\n Sequence Lights Music TV\n 000 Off Off Off\n 001 Off Off On\n 101 On Off On\n 110 On On Off\n 111 On On On\n\nAnd so on. Inside your computer are a lot of tiny electronic switches. When your computer \"reads\" in the binary code, it flips the switches on and off according to the code, and different combinations produce different outcomes. Some of the switches control what your monitor displays, others do math when they need to, and so on. When you combine hundreds, or thousands, or millions of these switches you can take the very simple example we used (where there were only three things to control) and expand it to something very complex (all the amazing things we can do with our computers today). \n\n**Edit:** Formatting.\n\n**Further Edit:** It's worth mentioning that sequences of binary numbers are also relatable to the very words I'm using to write this post. In any written language you have a combination of letters, which can be strung together to form words. Those words can be then strung together to form sentences, paragraphs, books, and so on. So from combinations of (in English anyway) 26 letters we can form infinitely complex messages. Binary is a language just like any other, and in effect your computer translates that written language into action by flipping the switches I described earlier. Wikipedia has a [nifty little GIF](_URL_0_) that shows how you can translate binary *the other way* (that is, understanding what the computer is doing in common language) by working backwards and converting 0's and 1's first into letters, and then into words.",
"Let's say you made an extremely basic program that lets you type in your name and then the program will reply with your name. You type in \"Mike\" and a text appears that says \"Mike\".\n\nWhen you first type in your name the program will know that you are typing a \"string\", which is basically a set of characters in order. It knows that you are not typing in a command to multiply two numbers or a command to turn off the PC. This is what the **program** knows. The actual processor in your computer knows nothing and it doesn't even care.\n\nThe program also knows that what it needs to do with your input is to display it as a string. It won't try to generate a Minecraft map from it or connect to a web server with what you typed in. This is where the chain of events starts that spans many levels of computer infrastructure.\n\n(If someone with better knowledge than mine spots any flaws or would like to elaborate on some issue please do.)\n\nThe program has your input. \"Mike\". It knows that it should display this input to you. The program asks the operating system (Windows, OSX, etc) to display this text. The operating system takes this request to the GPU driver, asking that it would update the area of the screen the text is to be displayed in.\n\nBinary is used in every part. The key thing to note is that it's not just the binary representation of your input \"Mike\" that is sent from the program to the operating system. The program adds a \"please display this text in my text output field\" message to the request. This message is also conveyed through the processor as binary.\n\nSo now the operating system receives a long number of 1's and 0's that it's meant to make sense of. First of all it figures out which program has sent the info (also included in the binary). Then it figures out the request (display on screen) and finally checks what is to be displayed (Mike). The operating system runs its own algorithm to determine what to do when faced with such a request and ends up sending a message to the graphics card.\n\nThe graphics card receives a binary message from the operating system that asks it to update an area of the screen. Specifically the area belonging to your program's text output field.\n\nSo basically even if you type in just what seems like a name to you, the program you type it into will know what other data to add to that name for results to appear. \"Mike\" [resembles](_URL_0_) \"01001101011010010110101101100101\" in binary, but the binary data stream your program sends forward is much longer than that. It not only contains what type of data it is carrying, but what it will be used for.\n\nI hope this wasn't too much off track, misinforming or hard to understand. I'm by no means an expert in this field.",
"Binary is used because it represents 'on' and 'off' on electrical switches. There are a lot of possible combinations of 0s and 1s, and they can all be understood in different ways. Majorly simplifying it, let's take a few of your examples. Text is pretty simple. Each chain of 0s and 1s represents a letter, or punctuation mark. A 0 or 1 is called a bit. Eight 0s/1s is called a *byte*. So for text, we can dedicate 1 byte to each letter. 01000001 is A, 01000011 is B etc. Then there could be another string of 0s and 1s that corresponds to the font.\n\nVideo is a series of pictures played quickly, one after the other, so perhaps it is more useful to think of a picture. A picture is understood by a computer as a grid with different colours in each square of the grid (called a pixel). Different colours can be represented by different binary strings again. This time though, we can choose how many digits of binary we assign to each pixel. The more digits, the more possible colours there are to choose from. For an image where we dedicate 1 byte (8 bits) to each pixel, there are 256 possible colours (from 00000000 to 11111111). If we dedicate 24 bits to each pixel, there are 16,777,216 possible colours! Of course, this takes up more memory.\n\nSound is different again, but the same basic principle. Sound is made by waves of compressed air. A speaker vibrates to create this compression. The vibrations are caused by different voltages across the speaker. Once again, each voltage can be spelled out using binary. This voltage, in CD quality audio, changes 44,100 times every second. If we dedicate 16 bits to each of these changes, there are 705,600 0s and 1s in every second of audio, and 65,536 possible voltage levels for each change (0000000000000000 to 1111111111111111).\n\nData can be compressed using shorthand ways of saying the same thing. For instance, if there are 5 red pixels together, an uncompressed image would essentially say 'One red pixel, one red pixel, one red pixel, one red pixel, one red pixel'. A compressed image would just say '5 red pixels'.\n\nHopefully you can see how data is stored using 0s and 1s. Programs and applications are outside of my knowledge, I'm afraid. Someone else will have to answer that.",
"01001001 01110100 00100111 01110011 00100000 01110001 01110101 01101001 01110100 01100101 00100000 01110011 01101001 01101101 01110000 01101100 01100101 00101100 00100000 01110010 01100101 01100001 01101100 01101100 01111001 00101110 00100000 01000001 00100000 01100010 01101001 01101110 01100001 01110010 01111001 00100000 01100011 01101111 01100100 01100101 00100000 01101001 01110011 00100000 01100001 00100000 01110111 01100001 01111001 00100000 01101111 01100110 00100000 01110010 01100101 01110000 01110010 01100101 01110011 01100101 01101110 01110100 01101001 01101110 01100111 00100000 01110100 01100101 01111000 01110100 00100000 01101111 01110010 00100000 01100011 01101111 01101101 01110000 01110101 01110100 01100101 01110010 00100000 01110000 01110010 01101111 01100011 01100101 01110011 01110011 01101111 01110010 00100000 01101001 01101110 01110011 01110100 01110010 01110101 01100011 01110100 01101001 01101111 01101110 01110011 00100000 01100010 01111001 00100000 01110100 01101000 01100101 00100000 01110101 01110011 01100101 00100000 01101111 01100110 00100000 01110100 01101000 01100101 00100000 01100010 01101001 01101110 01100001 01110010 01111001 00100000 01101110 01110101 01101101 01100010 01100101 01110010 00100000 01110011 01111001 01110011 01110100 01100101 01101101 00100111 01110011 00100000 01110100 01110111 01101111 00101101 01100010 01101001 01101110 01100001 01110010 01111001 00100000 01100100 01101001 01100111 01101001 01110100 01110011 00100000 00110000 00100000 01100001 01101110 01100100 00100000 00110001 00101110 00100000 01010100 01101000 01101001 01110011 00100000 01101001 01110011 00100000 01100001 01100011 01100011 01101111 01101101 01110000 01101100 01101001 01110011 01101000 01100101 01100100 00100000 01100010 01111001 00100000 01100001 01110011 01110011 01101001 01100111 01101110 01101001 01101110 01100111 00100000 01100001 00100000 01100010 01101001 01110100 00100000 01110011 01110100 01110010 01101001 01101110 01100111 00100000 01110100 01101111 00100000 01100101 01100001 01100011 01101000 00100000 01110000 01100001 01110010 01110100 01101001 01100011 01110101 01101100 01100001 01110010 00100000 01110011 01111001 01101101 01100010 01101111 01101100 00100000 01101111 01110010 00100000 01101001 01101110 01110011 01110100 01110010 01110101 01100011 01110100 01101001 01101111 01101110 00101110 00100000 01000110 01101111 01110010 00100000 01100101 01111000 01100001 01101101 01110000 01101100 01100101 00101100 00100000 01100001 00100000 01100010 01101001 01101110 01100001 01110010 01111001 00100000 01110011 01110100 01110010 01101001 01101110 01100111 00100000 01101111 01100110 00100000 01100101 01101001 01100111 01101000 01110100 00100000 01100010 01101001 01101110 01100001 01110010 01111001 00100000 01100100 01101001 01100111 01101001 01110100 01110011 00100000 00101000 01100010 01101001 01110100 01110011 00101001 00100000 01100011 01100001 01101110 00100000 01110010 01100101 01110000 01110010 01100101 01110011 01100101 01101110 01110100 00100000 01100001 01101110 01111001 00100000 01101111 01100110 00100000 00110010 00110101 00110110 00100000 01110000 01101111 01110011 01110011 01101001 01100010 01101100 01100101 00100000 01110110 01100001 01101100 01110101 01100101 01110011 00100000 01100001 01101110 01100100 00100000 01100011 01100001 01101110 00100000 01110100 01101000 01100101 01110010 01100101 01100110 01101111 01110010 01100101 00100000 01100011 01101111 01110010 01110010 01100101 01110011 01110000 01101111 01101110 01100100 00100000 01110100 01101111 00100000 01100001 00100000 01110110 01100001 01110010 01101001 01100101 01110100 01111001 00100000 01101111 01100110 00100000 01100100 01101001 01100110 01100110 01100101 01110010 01100101 01101110 01110100 00100000 01110011 01111001 01101101 01100010 01101111 01101100 01110011 00101100 00100000 01101100 01100101 01110100 01110100 01100101 01110010 01110011 00100000 01101111 01110010 00100000 01101001 01101110 01110011 01110100 01110010 01110101 01100011 01110100 01101001 01101111 01101110 01110011 00101110",
"I'm going to answer this based on how a computer knows a specific sequence of 1s and 0s translates to the lowercase letter 'a'.\n\nShort answer, it doesn't. The video card (for simplicity sake here) has been programed such that when it is told to \"move to location 0,0\" followed by \"display the contents of memory location 12345 as a string\" it will read that memory location and see that it has, for this example, an 8-bit value of 97. It looks up the 97th entry in the font table (basically a series of ones and zeroes which indicates which pixels should be on or off). If the system is following the ascii standard, the graphic should look like a lowercase 'a'.\n\nAs a programmer, you almost never have to deal with ones and zeroes. That said, it is still handy to know that the number 97 is stored in memory in binary and takes 8 bits (a bit is a single binary digit).\n\nI'd like to add that this font table is not the same thing as a font like you'd use in Word. A font table is used in DOS or Linux or in a full screen command prompt window in Windows (XP and earlier only). The font table is typically programmed into the hardware of the computer by the manufacturer.",
"A lot of these posts are on the basics of binary. I'm going to assume you also want to know the second part of your question.\n****\nFirst, encoding. *Encoding* is assigning a binary value to something. In akihiko's example, all on is encoded to 111. *Decoding* is taking this value apart, like \"the first 1 means the lights are off.\"\n****\nNow, text. The standard is *ASCII*(ask-ee). ASCII encoding assigns a ton of standard characters to an 8-bit number. [_URL_2_](_URL_1_) shows each character and its ASCII value.\n\nIn ASCII encoding: \n\n Hello World!\ntranslates to\n\n 010010000110010101101100011011000110111100100000010101110110111101110010011011000110010000100001\n\nIf you break apart each group of 8 bits and use the table, you can convert back to \"Hello World!\" Any .txt file is just a stream of binary numbers like the example above. There are also several other encoding schemes like Unicode that are beyond the scope of ELI5.\n****\nNow on to pictures. First, let's go over what a picture is to a computer. \n\nA picture is made up of a bunch of pixels, each with its own color, in a 3 dimensional array. The way a pixel color is represented is a 24 bit number. The first 8 bits represent the **R**ed value, the next 8 the **G**reen value, and the last 8 the **B**lue value. These values can be looked up in a color table, such as the one [here](_URL_0_). An additional 8 bits may be added to color value to represent an *alpha value*, which is the *transparency* value of the pixel.\n\nA bitmap stores a bunch of pixel values from left to right, top to bottom, much like a text file does with ASCII codes. Since it uses 24 or 32 bits per pixel, images with multiple megapixels can be quite large, which is why bitmaps are not commonly used anymore. GIF, PNG and JPEG are *compressed* image formats. I've seen many ELI5 posts on compression like *run-length* and *Huffman encoding*, so I won't bother explaining them here.\n****\nLastly, video. The most basic video format is taking a bunch of bitmaps and concatenating them together to make a series of pictures. However, the computer needs more information about this series of pictures, which is why most formats have a *header*. This header is a series of numbers in specified format that tell the computer how to play the video. For example, a header might contain the value 30 at bits 40-47, which could tell the computer that the video should be played at 30 frames per second.\n\nObviously using a series of bitmaps isn't the best way to store a video. 30 bitmaps played back at 30 frames per second would take up 10's of megabytes, even though the file is only a second long! Files like MPEG use compressed pictures like JPEG to store static images instead of bitmaps, which vastly reduces the size, but still, a 1 hour video would have 108,000 frames if it is 30 frames per second, or 108,000 pictures, which is still too large. \n\nMPEG uses another compression scheme, where you have a keyframe (or I-frame) every set number of frames (lets say 30). This means every 30 frames, the frame played back is stored in its entirety. However, the frames in between keyframes are *interpolated* (called P-frames). These frames only store information on *what has changed since the last frame*. Since a lot of things don't change in between frames in a series of pictures (say, a person is walking around, that persons position in the frame changes, but the person itself doesn't change, nor does the background), storing all this information repeatedly is redundant, which MPEG aimed to fix. You cannot seek to a P frame, since building that frame requires information from the frame before it, which is why you can only seek to certain parts of some videos.\n****\nWow, this explanation really got away from me; it's way above ELI5 but I hope it helps.",
"Let's start slowly, and just think about turning \"0s and 1s\" into text.\n\nReally, it's a lot like how one might read Morse code. After all, Morse code and binary are conceptually very similar. The same way that binary only has 0 and 1, Morse code only has \"short\" and \"long\" tones. \n\nNow, many people can't read Morse code, so we get a translator and make a simple rule for them to follow. We draw the [alphabet onto a nice chart diagram](_URL_0_), and we teach the translator that every time he reads \"A\" in Morse code, he should point to the \"A\" on our diagram so that we can see what he read.\n\n**Here's the trick: The translator doesn't actually need to *know* our alphabet in order to do this!** He/she just needs to know which part of the diagram to point at when they read the corresponding Morse code character. So as long as they point to the picture of \"T\" when they read \"-\", they'll never actually need to learn what \"T\" is.\n\nNow we can understand what they read in Morse code without either of us having to learn the other's language. That's exactly how computers are able to \"translate\" \"0s and 1s\" into text.\n\nFor a picture, it's very similar. We give our translator a blank piece of paper and some crayons, and teach them that whenever they read certain words in Morse code, they should draw a specific part of that paper a certain color. So if they read \"blue\", they might draw the whole piece of paper blue. \"Topleft blue\" would have them draw the top-left corner of the paper blue. Obviously, this is a harder and slower process than translating text, but it all works out in the end. \n\nA video is just like a flipbook, and a flipbook is just a series of pictures. So, we have our translator draw a bunch of pictures as described above, and then flip the pages for us. Voila, Youtube!",
"Can someone explain how to count numbers in binary?",
"I'll try to answer this a little different than the 0/1 approach.\n\nAn important part of the answer is, that a computer is not just one computer. It is many. There is a little computer that controls memory access (the memory controller), a little computer that calculates graphics (the graphics CPU) together with a little computer that outputs graphics (the RAMDAC), several little computers that make disk IO work (s/ata controller, the HD controller, the USB interface, the chip on the USB sticks etc)\n\nThose little computers all communicate using bus systems. The main CPU is what you might refer to when speaking of a computer, but only because it's the only part that doesn't have a specific, factory set program that it runs. Instead, it runs the BIOS and then the Operating System. This is the part that makes all the important decisions, but needs all these other components to do that. \"Get me memory from address to address\", \"Send part of the memory to disk\" etc.\n\nI hope this makes understanding the other answers here a little easier for you. ",
"The computer components are build by the simplest memory circuits and they can remember only two states, 0 and 1. This are called impulses. Zero means no impulse, 1 means there's an impulse. By doing this, they generate information. The computer translates the binary (base 2) to hexadecimal (base 16) into assembly language (machine code) and that way you can give commands to the CPU. I suggest you start with some basics for electronics, like flip-flops, counters, registers and then move onto architectures of the first microprocessors like Intel 8085, Motorola 6800 etc. Get in with the basics of assembly language also.\n\nPS: Poop, an five-year-old won't get this.",
"I don't know why everyone loves to type huge responses here. I was a computer science major and I can tell you exactly what it's like. \n\nThink of it like letters. With these letters, we make words. Words are sequences of letters put together to give the letters more meaning. Think of zeros and ones like a two letter alphabet and all the text, graphics, video, programs, data, etc are all just words, books, and libraries.",
"A lot of the answers on this thread talk about binary as being translated by a program... Would it be possible to also talk about where the program initially comes from? I would imagine that any program is a bunch of ones and zeroes as well, so it would need a program in order read it (the operating system?). But then the operating system is also a program. So what reads it? What's the first program, and how does it work?",
"I'm seriously glad people figured out computers. Seems damn complicated and awesome.",
"It's like morse code for computers. Y",
"Top comment kind of explained it, but I believe it didn't fully answer the question, so here's my take on this. Gonna be more like ELI15, but whatever, I think it's pretty interesting.\n\nFirst of all, information is determined by electricity. If there is a current, it's 1, if there isn't - 0. This gets processed in CPU (central processing unit, your good ol' Intel). CPU contains a lot of logical schemes, each of which is designed to perform certain tasks using only electrical current. Each logic circuit is arranged to perform certain task - add, multiply, save to memory, draw a dot of a certain color at a certain place etc.\n\nIn a sense, computer doesn't really \"know\" what to do. Instead, by generating input with, say, keyboard we create certain information sequence that is processed by CPU and generates output that we need. If you feed CPU with exact same information, it will always generate the same result. It can't have a \"change of heart\".\n\nExample: we have a CPU that outputs 1 if we type in 010 and 0 in all other cases. Logic circuit will be like a tree with a lot of branches. Only one of those branches contains 1, rest are 0. By using special switches we guide electrical signal and get output. Of course CPUs are way more complex than that.\n\nContinuing answering the question, these circuits make basic machine code possible. Essentially **this is what computer does** - calculates everything step by step, draws everything dot by dot. Programmers make this understandable by combining these basic functions: to show symbol \"a\" on a screen, we get a certain information in form of current from keyboard to CPU (say, 0001), determine symbol in a following fashion: \"if input is 0000 then space, if 0001 then \"a\", if 0002 then \"b\" etc and then print it dot by dot.",
"You should check out the book [Code](_URL_0_). It's an amazing book that starts with the simplest analogy and lowest level and builds layer upon layer on top of it to understand how computers work today."
]
} | [] | [] | [
[
"http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/7/77/Wikipedia_in_binary.gif"
],
[
"http://www.roubaixinteractive.com/PlayGround/Binary_Conversion/Binary_To_Text.asp"
],
[],
[],
[],
[
"http://gucky.uni-muenster.de/cgi-bin/rgbtab-en",
"http://www.asciitable.com/",
"ASCIItable.com"
],
[
"http://www.kidsbuilder.com/download/capital_letter_alphabet_chart.jpg"
],
[],
[],
[],
[],
[],
[],
[],
[],
[
"http://www.amazon.com/Code-Language-Computer-Hardware-Software/dp/0735611319/"
]
] |
|
29p9bj | what is it i'm actually smelling as a thunderstorm approaches? | Just today I walked outside to overcast skies, and I could smell the storm coming. What did I smell? | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/29p9bj/eli5what_is_it_im_actually_smelling_as_a/ | {
"a_id": [
"cin72i4",
"cinao0f"
],
"score": [
16,
2
],
"text": [
"An electrical charge—from lightning or a man-made source such as an electrical generator—splits atmospheric nitrogen and oxygen molecules into separate atoms. Some of these recombine into nitric oxide, and this in turn reacts with other atmospheric chemicals, occasionally producing a molecule made up of three oxygen atoms—ozone, or O3. (Most atmospheric oxygen is made up of two atoms—O2.) The scent of ozone heralds stormy weather because a thunderstorm's downdrafts carry O3 from higher altitudes to nose level.",
"If you're in the Southwest, you might be smelling creosote. The rain releases its pollen, which has a unique bittersweet odor. \nEdit: grammar."
]
} | [] | [] | [
[],
[]
] |
|
d7oc58 | why is mitochondria called "the powerhouse of the cell" and what is its relationship with atp? | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/d7oc58/eli5_why_is_mitochondria_called_the_powerhouse_of/ | {
"a_id": [
"f12sizf",
"f12spkr",
"f12w4uc",
"f135duu"
],
"score": [
6,
2,
3,
2
],
"text": [
"Your mum makes you meal so that you can get energy from food to play; mitochondria makes ATP so that cells have the energy to do what they need to do.",
"It's literally the organelle that produces the \"energy\" that the body uses. That energy is ATP.",
"ATP (adenosine triphosphate) is the energy molecule that our cells use. When used, one of the phosphates comes off, leaving us with ADP+P . (Adenosine diphosphate + phosphate)\n\nThe mitochondria is bound in membranes that are equipped with everything (membrane proteins) they need to re-energize ADP+P. Using energy from food to stick that phosphate back on, we get more useful ATP. This doesn't occur anywhere else in the cell at this scale",
"ELI5 of u/kineth great description, but maybe too complex for very young people: All you eat and store gets turned into glucose when you need energy, then that gets turned into ATP on the mitochondria. Your body can use ATP as energy, not glucose directly."
]
} | [] | [] | [
[],
[],
[],
[]
] |
||
fze530 | how are some munitions designed to detonate before they hit the ground/target? | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/fze530/eli5_how_are_some_munitions_designed_to_detonate/ | {
"a_id": [
"fn4084g",
"fn42434",
"fn44bb9"
],
"score": [
3,
2,
5
],
"text": [
"In short, computers. Computers paired with some other instrument like an altimeter or simple radar that are programmed to detonate when a certain height/distance from the target is returned by the scanning instrument.",
"Proximity fuses work by measuring distance to the ground by sending out radar, laser, etc. and when it bounces back go boom.",
"In addition to the fancy things mentioned by other folks, like lasers/radar/altimeters, some air-burst munitions just use a simple timer. For example, part of calculating the details of an artillery mission is figuring out the round's time of flight to the target. So you just set a timer on the fuze to function a little bit before you know it will hit the ground.\n\nSource: former fire direction officer."
]
} | [] | [] | [
[],
[],
[]
] |
||
1qpjuw | if trans fats are truly as dangerous as people say, then why is it still legal to put them in food? | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/1qpjuw/eli5_if_trans_fats_are_truly_as_dangerous_as/ | {
"a_id": [
"cdf4zfc",
"cdf5fes"
],
"score": [
6,
3
],
"text": [
"not legal anymore...\n\n_URL_0_\n",
"It's quickly become more and more illegal, because trans fats literally stick to the sides of your arteries and slowly block them until you have a heart attack and require a bypass. "
]
} | [] | [] | [
[
"http://www.reuters.com/article/2013/11/11/idUS243461124420131111"
],
[]
] |
||
73i8rm | how does exercise benefit the body so greatly if it increases oxidative stress, the basis for all known disease? | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/73i8rm/eli5_how_does_exercise_benefit_the_body_so/ | {
"a_id": [
"dnqh32o",
"dnqhi8v",
"dnqs7wh"
],
"score": [
5,
3,
2
],
"text": [
"The oxidative negative effects are negligible compared to the PREVENTION of the negatives of not exercising. Basically, having amazing, \"non-oxidated\" heart arteries arent worth much if they are clogged with fat.",
" > oxidative stress, the basis for all known disease\n\nHere is the error in your thinking. Most diseases actually have *other* causes.",
"The important thing to keep in mind here is the body's ability to maintain homeostasis. When there is a stress placed on the body that is beyond what the body can readily compensate for, you get disease. Assuming normal physiology, the oxidative stress that exercise places on your body is well within what your body should be able to deal with. Hence, why the known benefits of exercise are not outweighed by the stress exercise places on the body."
]
} | [] | [] | [
[],
[],
[]
] |
||
6c11bk | how do companies sell away so many stocks to public, still totally owned and controlled by the same people, if stock are a form of ownership? | For example, Apple has stock. But if me and a million more people buy Apple stock, the company would still have the same owner and people in charge. So how are the rest of us owners? In most cases we don't even get a cut of the net profit.
This confuses me. What exactly is a stock? What is a share?
I buy 1 stock or share of Apple, what percentage of the company do I own?
| explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/6c11bk/eli5_how_do_companies_sell_away_so_many_stocks_to/ | {
"a_id": [
"dhr37ah",
"dhr3f7h"
],
"score": [
3,
4
],
"text": [
"Stock and shares are the same thing. One share is a fraction of ownership in the company.\n\nApple has approximately 5 billion shares out there, so if you own one share, you get one vote, but practically speaking, that vote doesn't matter much.\n\nThe shares of Apple are *not* controlled by any one person or small group of people. What that means is that if the majority of Apple shareholders decided to, they could vote to replace the CEO Tim Cook or vote to make Apple do something else, and the company wouldn't be able to say no. The shareholders ultimately control the company.\n\nHowever, in practice this is relatively rare. When a large company is successful, shareholders rarely have any influence.\n\nSome companies set up different rules. At Google, the founders made their own shares worth 10 votes each. That way they only owned 5% of the shares but they got 50% of the votes. So even if every shareholder in the world wanted to, they couldn't control Google. All they could do to send a message is dump Google stock and cause the share price to go down, causing employees and founders to lose money.\n",
"Apple has been regularly giving out dividends for 10 years. In 2017 they gave out .57 cents a share in February, and .63 cents a share in May for the first and second quarters respectively. That's your cut of the profits. Apple's market valuation is over 300 billion dollars. Even if Bill gates liquidated his 75 billion dollar net worth and used it all to purchase Apple Stock, he'd own only 20% of the company. Apple is so valuable no one person can gain majority control today."
]
} | [] | [] | [
[],
[]
] |
|
27sczr | why jupiter, saturn, uranus and neptune are considered giant planets and not small planets with big atmospheres? | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/27sczr/eli5_why_jupiter_saturn_uranus_and_neptune_are/ | {
"a_id": [
"ci3vkhq",
"ci3vlcq"
],
"score": [
3,
3
],
"text": [
"Even if you ignored their crushing atmospheres as \"just atmosphere\", you rapidly get down into the quasi-liquid, or maybe solid who knows? cores, which are still many times larger than any of the terrestrial planets.\n\nSeriously, they are giant.",
"Why shouldn't the atmosphere count as part of the planet? You may think that we don't count the atmosphere as part of Earth, but that's just because it's so thin. Go look at a globe. Earth's atmosphere is about as thick as the lacquer on it."
]
} | [] | [] | [
[],
[]
] |
||
1g0a2f | would google fiber's phenomenal download/upload speed be useful for people who don't torrent movies or software like your average redditor? why are cable companies wrong in saying that fiber's speed is unnecessary and overkill? | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/1g0a2f/eli5_would_google_fibers_phenomenal/ | {
"a_id": [
"cafih4m",
"cafiom3",
"cafjm6u",
"cafnsj3"
],
"score": [
14,
11,
6,
2
],
"text": [
"More speed is desirable because, while we cannot predict exactly *what* customers will be doing with that bandwidth, we can predict that they will want and need it. We all use more data than we did 5 years ago and 5 years before that. We will surely use more 5 years from now. Keeping our internet services sufficiently robust to anticipate future need is simply common sense. And judging from the profits the ISP's make, they can certainly afford to upgrade. They just don't want to.",
"If all you do is a bit of web browsing and email, then fibre probably isn't that useful to you, but even then it can be in certain situations.\n\nOne of the main advantages of Fibre-to-the-Building (like Google Fibre, a system where the connection uses fibre optics all the way from your house to your ISP) is that it is *synchronous*, meaning that the upload speed is as fast as the download speed. I'm not too familiar with the situation in the US, but in the UK, and I believe most of Europe, the most commonly used technology is ADSL2+, which is *asynchronous*, meaning that the upload speed is much slower (around 20x slower) than the download speed.\n\nHaving a slow upload speed means that sending any large quantity of data can take a very long time: uploading a ten minute video clip to youtube can take me over an hour, if it is hi-def.\n\nSo what, most people don't upload HD videos, you might say. But consider that hi-definition (or at least, 720p) video cameras are now standard in most new phones. More and more people are taking videos and pictures, and uploading them to share with friends and family. For example, my mum takes lots of pictures of her children and her granddaughter, which she emails to my grandmothers local picture shop. They print them out, and my grandma can pick them up (she's 91, it's easier than emailing her them direct.) A high quality digital photo is often over a megabyte. Sending a whole album of them can really take a while on a copper ADSL connection.\n\nHere are some other examples of applications that lots of \"normal\" internet users use that would benefit from fibre:\n\n* Video conferencing. I know plenty of middle-aged and older people who use Skype for video calls, and who are far from power users.\n* Netflix/Lovefilm/Hulu etc. HD televisions are pretty much the norm for new purchases these days. To stream truly HD video (not compressed to hell) you need a fat pipe.\n* Online backup. Using Google Drive, MS Skydrive, Dropbox etc is a great easy way for the average home user to do offsite backup, but for even a few gigs, you'll need a good upload speed.\n\nNow in fairness, all these things can be done with a lot less than 1Gbps, but they do need more than the ~20Mpbs/1Mbps you get with pure copper infrastructure. You can get a bit faster (~40Mbps) by using Fibre-to-the-Cabinet, and VDSL the rest of the way, like British Telecom do, but really, for a smooth internet experience using HD quality video services, you need 50-100Mbps both ways, and that means fibre. 1Gbps may be overkill, but there isn't really a technology in-between fibre and copper.\n\nThere is a company in London called Hyperoptic, doing essentially what Google are doing, laying down their own fibre network. Although they offer speeds of 1Gbps, apparently their cheaper, 100Mbps package is more popular. Just because you have the capacity to offer 1Gbps doesn't mean you can't sell less of that capacity for cheaper, until the market wants the really high speeds: You *could* achieve 10Gbps with fibre, if you have the backend infrastructure to back it up.\n\nSorry if this has strayed a bit from LY5, comment if I've got too technical on any particular point.",
"Well, the majority of internet services can be provided using today's bandwidth/speed, but that's because they were built so that they could run on the current infrastructure. \n\nThink about a bike lane in a small town. Let's say the town starts out without bike lanes, so many people think \"there aren't bike lanes, so it isn't wise for me to take my bike. I'll take my car instead.\" Now what cable companies are claiming is that they don't need to add a bike lane because no one rides their bike. But once the town implements a bike lane, many people decide that using their bike is better and start using it. \n\nGiving wider bandwidth and higher speeds is essentially like adding the bike lane. It opens the availability for companies to develop new services that require faster internet speeds that previously weren't available. We might start streaming 1080p movies more often, or for the elite, 4K+ resolution streaming. \n\nAlso remember that many things in technology follow the trend. A new big service will be released and everyone will say \"OMG THIS IS SO MUCH THAT NO ONE CAN USE IT ALL.\"\nThey probably felt that way the first time a 1.44MB floppy disk was released. Back then they were used to store rudimentary programs and text. They would probably think a 2TB hard drive (not that uncommon today) is overkill, but we've found new ways to fill that capacity, namely HD movies, games, music albums, etc.\n\nEDIT: More elaboration:\nI remember when I was younger, we still had a 56K dial-up connection. The idea of watching online videos with that speed is atrocious. Also, the idea of cloud computing and storage would have been impossible without improving the speeds, so tools like dropbox wouldn't exist if we stuck with dial-up. Back then, we didn't have any idea of these services and probably felt that dial-up was sufficient as well. But once speeds improved, people filled in services that required higher speeds (Like youtube and Dropbox).",
"So I can download a car."
]
} | [] | [] | [
[],
[],
[],
[]
] |
||
23d7rk | why did video games require memory cards when past games used to be able to save within the game itself? | **Example:** The Legend of Zelda and literally all Nintendo 64 games | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/23d7rk/eli5_why_did_video_games_require_memory_cards/ | {
"a_id": [
"cgvttkf",
"cgvttoz",
"cgvtw3j"
],
"score": [
2,
6,
3
],
"text": [
"When games where on cartridges they had a memory card built in. When they moved to CD's and later DVD's they required external memory because it'd be bad to be constantly writing and erasing data on the CD. Itd ruin the game disc fairly quickly.",
"Cartridge games had the equivalent of memory cards built into the game cartridge. You can't do that with games on a CD. Well, technically you can if you have a CD-burner and a re-writable CD, but that technology was *much* more expensive than read-only CDs at the time, and memory cards were a cheaper alternative.",
"Older games on cartridges had small memory modules inside that could be used for saved game storage. As game programs got larger, they needed more space than a cartridge could hold, so they moved to CDs, DVDs, Blu-Rays, etc. You can't save to a disc without changing the hardware of the system to a read/write drive, which would have increased the cost, and possibly degraded the longevity of the disc due to multiple write/rewrite operations. It was easier and cheaper to manufacture a gaming system with disc-based games, and external memory card storage. "
]
} | [] | [] | [
[],
[],
[]
] |
|
5a9k99 | why is hayfever so massively common compared to other allergies? | If this isn't actually true and it's just confirmation bias, let me know. | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/5a9k99/eli5_why_is_hayfever_so_massively_common_compared/ | {
"a_id": [
"d9eqr42",
"d9eqt3i"
],
"score": [
2,
3
],
"text": [
"Hayfever is not a specific allergy. It is a broad category applied to all allergies to airborne pollen regardless of what plant is producing it. It is so massively common because there are so many different species of plants. \n\nYou will sometimes get more specific diagnosis for being allergic to cedar, or ragweed, or yuka and the like if it is stronger or the only allergy you have but Hayfever is a catchall term. ",
"Hayfever isn't just one allergy, it's dozens, if not hundreds, of different allergies lumped into a single name. Somebody with a peanut allergy is probably just allergic to peanuts. Hayfever covers people allergic to any number of trees, grasses, flowers & weeds - each of them is a *specific* allergen. This is why people often notice a change in their seasonal suffering (for good or bad) when moving to a new part of the country.\n\nSo, yes, it is the most common but that's because it's it's dozens of different allergies lumped together as one thing."
]
} | [] | [] | [
[],
[]
] |
|
6amhqe | memory leaking | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/6amhqe/eli5_memory_leaking/ | {
"a_id": [
"dhfohrv"
],
"score": [
8
],
"text": [
"\"Leaking\" is a metaphor. It actually refers to a situation where a program tells the computer \"I need to use some memory\" and then forgets to say \"I'm done using that memory.\" Over time, the computer allocates more and more of its memory to this program, making it hard for other programs to run."
]
} | [] | [] | [
[]
] |
||
1vf0ze | difference between 2-stroke and 4-stroke motorcycles (specifically dirt bikes) | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/1vf0ze/eli5difference_between_2stroke_and_4stroke/ | {
"a_id": [
"cerllgw",
"cerlphp",
"cerp0xr",
"cerr6un",
"cersahz"
],
"score": [
19,
2,
4,
15,
2
],
"text": [
"[2 strokes](_URL_1_) have a power stroke every rotation. [4 strokes](_URL_0_) have a power stroke every second rotation.\n\nMost 2 strokes use ports that are covered and uncovered by the piston to inject air/gas and remove the exhaust. 4 strokes use valve for those jobs.\n\n2 strokes tend to be less efficient than 4 strokes.",
"A four-stroke uses valve gear in the head of the cylinder to introduce fuel-air mixture and allow the release of the burnt mixture... the four cycles are inlet, compression, ignition/expansion and exhaust as the cylinder goes up and down twice completely in the course of the complete sequence.\nIn a two-stroke the fuel /air ingress and exhaust is handled by ports in the cylinder wall being exposed or closed by the piston as it passes (in the classic version, modern engines modify the timing with extra kit). In order to force the mixture into the cylinder it is passed through the crankcase and is therefore compressed by the piston on the way down. The sequence is therefore inlet (already compressed), ignition/exhaust. ",
"2 strokes are simpler (thus cheaper), lighter, provide more power and usually require you to mix oil into the fuel. They also tend to wear out faster, make more noise & more pollution.",
"2 stroke: **breathe, explode**. Piston goes up and down once per cycle.\n\n4 stroke: **breathe, squeeze, explode, exhale**. Piston has to go up and down two times per cycle.\n\n2 strokes are simpler, louder, and not as efficient as 4 strokes. They also usually need oil mixed in with the gas since they do everything at once.",
"Even though everyone has done a fine job explaining the differences, I thought I would throw my two cents in. These comparisons assume the same displacement for both engines.\n\n2-Stroke\n\nPros: lighter, simpler, more powerful\n\nCons: Dirtier, must mix gas and oil, less efficient, wear out sooner\n\n\n4-Stroke\n\nPros: More efficient, no mixing, longer lasting, more efficient, cleaner\n\nCons: Heavier, less power, complicated\n"
]
} | [] | [] | [
[
"http://www.zoopedup.com/blogs/uploads/Piston0.gif",
"http://elearning.vtu.ac.in/P7/enotes/AU51/Animated%20Engines%20Two%20Stroke%20Cycle_files/twostroke.gif"
],
[],
[],
[],
[]
] |
||
97pgqh | if you feed a cow with its own milk, will that cow be able to live out its life with no additional food source? | [deleted] | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/97pgqh/eli5if_you_feed_a_cow_with_its_own_milk_will_that/ | {
"a_id": [
"e49zywd",
"e49zzdc"
],
"score": [
2,
2
],
"text": [
"Like, feeding the cow milk taken from that same exact cow? That won't work because cows don't turn 100% of their food into milk. Some of it is lost.\n\nBut just feeding cows with cow milk - sure. Milk has all the nutrients necessary for the animal that the milk comes from. The only problem is that some individuals may not be able to process milk one they are adult. It can be fixed with some breeding.\n\nIn fact, humans can live off of human milk alone too. But again, only those who are not lactose intolerant.",
"No system is 100% efficient. When the cow feeds it doesn't just use energy it has gotten from the food to make milk, it also releases some of that energy in the form of heat and motion (walking). "
]
} | [] | [] | [
[],
[]
] |
|
6nqlr2 | what black light is and how it works to highlight many fluids and make certain colors glow | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/6nqlr2/eli5_what_black_light_is_and_how_it_works_to/ | {
"a_id": [
"dkbi05x",
"dkbihoz",
"dkbjjg6",
"dkbkfc5"
],
"score": [
15,
8,
4,
3
],
"text": [
"Black light is ultraviolet light. Ultravolet means it is a wavelength too short for the eyes to see. However, some chemical compound can absorb certain wavelenghts, and emit light at an other, hence the glowing effect",
"They have an interesting property to them.\nUltraviolet (UV) light with shorter wavelengths has more overall energy, and a wider variety of materials will fluoresce (glow) under shorter wavelengths of UV light. The type of Ultraviolet light and the color of visible light is determined by its wavelength. The unit of measurement for light wavelengths is the nanometer (nm). Ultraviolet light is generally considered to be from 200 nm to 400 nm. It is safe, not harmful to the eyes, and will make fluorescent paints & markers light up brightly. It will also rapidly 'charge up' glow-in-the-dark materials (instead of holding them under bright white light for long periods of time). However, once you get into the short UV wavelengths (such as those under 300 nm) they have so much energy that they will burn your eyes & skin (which is exactly why they are used in tanning machines). Short wavelength of UV light is also the particular wavelength that will kill microorganisms in the UV wavelength of 264 nm.",
"Black light is very bright but most of its energy is in the ultraviolet spectrum which is higher in frequency than our eyes can see. Much like a dog whistle sounds silent to us because of it's pitch, ultraviolet light seems dark because of it's frequency. \n\nSome materials have a characteristic where they can absorb energy at one frequency, and re-radiate it outwards at a different frequency and we call them phosphors. When you take a black light poster and expose it to ultraviolet light, the pigment and ink in the posters colors absorb ultraviolet light and re-emit it as very pure oranges, reds, greens, and yellows making the poster appear to be self illuminating. \n\nPhosphors are also found in old television screens where they absorb electrons and re-emit their energy as photons, and flourescent tubes. \n\nFluorescent lighting is actually all black light because the electrical arc in the tubes is mostly in the ultraviolet range, so they coat the inside of the tubes with white phosophors which absorb the ultraviolet light and re-radiate it as white light. If you hold a fluorescent tube near a black light, it will glow. \n\nPhosphors are also in many bleaches and whitening agents and help make white clothing look whiter by absorbing natural UV light and re-emitting it as white light making them appear whiter. ",
"As others have explained, black light is UV light.\n\nBut an easier way to explain how it causes things to glow is to first identify what light actually *is*, and then distinguish it from UV light interactions.\n\nVisible light is a series of waves. These waves can be longer, or shorter, and their lengths determine the color that you see when it hits your eye. When you shine regular white light (which is *all* wavelengths of visible light) on gold, it shines back a bright yellowish color. That's because the gold absorbs all of the other color wavelengths.\n\nFor \"black\" (or UV) light, a similar principle occurs. The light waves hit the object, and a certain color wavelength bounces back for people to see. But UV is a higher energy light. Its wavelength is small enough to excite electrons inside of certain substances or materials. This excitation causes the electrons to elevate into a higher state of energy, and cause things to \"glow\". It isn't just a different light being bounced back. The material is energized from the UV light. This is called luminescence. "
]
} | [] | [] | [
[],
[],
[],
[]
] |
||
2vhg8w | why do halogen headlights look white at some angles but blue at others? | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/2vhg8w/eli5_why_do_halogen_headlights_look_white_at_some/ | {
"a_id": [
"cohoeo2"
],
"score": [
2
],
"text": [
"HIDs, which I think you're talking about, AKA Xenon, is an electric arc.\n\nThey're often used behind a projector lens, which gives a sharp cutoff of the beam, to prevent glare. At the edge of this cutoff, is a [varied color area](_URL_0_) \n\nWhen your eye is in the area of this blue fringe, they appear blue. "
]
} | [] | [] | [
[
"http://blog.onexhid.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/01/onex-hid-cutoff-line-step-1.jpg"
]
] |
||
my5a2 | how radiation stays inside the nuclear plants but radiation can go through almost anything? | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/my5a2/eli5_how_radiation_stays_inside_the_nuclear/ | {
"a_id": [
"c34sdj1",
"c34sdj1"
],
"score": [
6,
6
],
"text": [
"Well, there are different types of radiation, and they all have different properties, but I'm going to give you a general answer.\n\nThere are specific materials that have a high tendency to interact with the radiation coming through it and slow it down. If the \"shielding\", such as a lead wall for example, is thick enough, it will block the radiation to a very small background (i.e. non-dangerous) level.\n\nSo if you are designing a nuclear reactor, you would want to use appropriate materials in building your reactor containment vessel to prevent any leakage of radiation.\n\nHere's a real example: On a 688 Class Nuclear Attack Submarine, the Diesel Oil storage tanks are just forward of the Reactor compartment. This has a beneficial effect because Diesel Oil is a pretty good nuclear shield. So what happens if you use up all the diesel fuel? Do you irradiate the crew? Nope. They put water in the oil tank which is also a pretty good shield. And every kid knows oil and water don't mix, so the oil and water stay separate in the tank. Neat, isn't it?\n\nOf course, there are some types of very, very high energy radiation that pass though stuff easily, but these are not the kinds that you are too worried about coming from Nuclear reactions. ",
"Well, there are different types of radiation, and they all have different properties, but I'm going to give you a general answer.\n\nThere are specific materials that have a high tendency to interact with the radiation coming through it and slow it down. If the \"shielding\", such as a lead wall for example, is thick enough, it will block the radiation to a very small background (i.e. non-dangerous) level.\n\nSo if you are designing a nuclear reactor, you would want to use appropriate materials in building your reactor containment vessel to prevent any leakage of radiation.\n\nHere's a real example: On a 688 Class Nuclear Attack Submarine, the Diesel Oil storage tanks are just forward of the Reactor compartment. This has a beneficial effect because Diesel Oil is a pretty good nuclear shield. So what happens if you use up all the diesel fuel? Do you irradiate the crew? Nope. They put water in the oil tank which is also a pretty good shield. And every kid knows oil and water don't mix, so the oil and water stay separate in the tank. Neat, isn't it?\n\nOf course, there are some types of very, very high energy radiation that pass though stuff easily, but these are not the kinds that you are too worried about coming from Nuclear reactions. "
]
} | [] | [] | [
[],
[]
] |
||
dnavrr | what does a "reset signal" to a cpu do? (computer science) | [deleted] | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/dnavrr/eli5_what_does_a_reset_signal_to_a_cpu_do/ | {
"a_id": [
"f59b8uf"
],
"score": [
2
],
"text": [
"Well that's depends on what it's designed to do and what architecture. There's a really good book (_URL_0_) that goes through what happens when a computer boots up, this article explains in brief depth.\n\n_URL_1_\n\nThe ELI5 version is that there is an address your CPU is programmed to jump to when a reset hardware interrupt is triggered. \n\nThis is just a signal that can be wired up to some button i.e what's on your laptop. It physically tells your computer to freeze, sometimes do some stuff (clean up routines) and jump to some area in memory.\n\nThis address \"reset vector\" is just some memory that may or may not be mapped \"have something put there\". On Intel CPUs it's normally located at 0xffffffffffffffff 64bit.\n\nSo if I'm writing a bootloader (software that prepares your machine for booting up) I just map some code to that location. This allows me to hook into the boot process.\n\nAfter this it's hugely dependant on what the software has been programmed to do. But generally you need to get the processor into some state that it can initialise RAM (switching modes/turn on paging etc.), load drivers, boot a kernel and finally read the files system."
]
} | [] | [] | [
[
"https://github.com/cfenollosa/os-tutorial",
"https://0xax.gitbooks.io/linux-insides/Booting/linux-bootstrap-1.html"
]
] |
|
51wuuw | what causes sponges to be as absorbent as they are compared to others? | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/51wuuw/eli5_what_causes_sponges_to_be_as_absorbent_as/ | {
"a_id": [
"d7fis49",
"d7fjd77"
],
"score": [
2,
2
],
"text": [
"Assuming by 'others' you mean other materials, it's because they are full of tiny holes and chambers. Liquid is drawn into the chambers by capillary action.",
"Water sticks to materials that are hydrophilic. You'll notice that if you let some water drop onto a stone: It'll spread out into a very thin layer, and it will stick to it even if you lift the stone and turn it upside down. \n\nA sponge is like a stone, it is also hydrophilic. But unlike the stone, it has many little connected holes in it, with a huge surface area. The water sticks to the surface of these holes, spreading out through the entire sponge until it is completely filled with water, and it won't run off unless you squeeze it.\n\nSponge like materials which are made from hydrophobic material meanwhile won't let water creep into the little holes unless you force it, since the water minimizes contact area with the material. \n"
]
} | [] | [] | [
[],
[]
] |
||
fdgmlj | what causes tornadoes to form and why are they so often along the same historical paths? | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/fdgmlj/eli5_what_causes_tornadoes_to_form_and_why_are/ | {
"a_id": [
"fjhaena",
"fjhchkh"
],
"score": [
5,
3
],
"text": [
"When warm, moist air mixes with cold air. When they meet the work around each other creating the cyclone. Most tornadoes form during thunderstorms, but that is not a requirement for there to be one. \n\nSame paths have to do with where these warm and cold fronts meet which is typically around “tornado alley.” (cold air from Canada & warm, moist air from the Gulf of Mexico)\n\nI live in the Midwest and at times you can predict that there will be a tornado watch or warning that day just based on how the air feels.",
"As to why they follow the same paths:\n\nGeography largely defines weather patterns. Since the actual geography of the Great Plains remains the same, the cold weather comes down to the same relative place and meet warm air masses in the same relative places and so the storms form in the same relative places."
]
} | [] | [] | [
[],
[]
] |
||
1jys7q | what are exactly elementary particles? | Rather: Can you explain everything around and about the elementary particles in not too technical terms? Wikipedia is not the best place to learn about our yet smallest found particles. | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/1jys7q/eli5_what_are_exactly_elementary_particles/ | {
"a_id": [
"cbjliff"
],
"score": [
6
],
"text": [
"Elementary particles are, simply put, particles that make up, and regulate the behaviour of, all of the matter around us. That is to say that they are discrete particles that cannot be broken down into other parts or particles. These include the various quarks, leptons and bosons. \n\nThe bosons are the \"force carrier\" particles. In very simple terms they are the particles that cause the various fundamental forces to act. These include the photon which \"carry\" the electromagnetic force (in other words, carry light), the W and Z bosons which carry/mediate the weak nuclear force (involved in beta radioactive decay) and gluons which carry the strong nuclear force (sticks all the particles in the nucleus of an atom together). \n\nQuarks are the \"matter particles\". There are six different types (up, down, top, bottom, strange, charm) that combine in different configurations to form the protons and neutrons that form the nuclei of atoms. \n\nLeptons include the familiar electron (responsible for electricity and chemical properties of elements) and the less familiar and more obscure electron neutrino and muons. \n\n"
]
} | [] | [] | [
[]
] |
|
1oj2hn | what do the letter classifications (kroq, wfan, kmox etc.) for radio stations mean and/or how are they assigned? | It is something I have always wondered about. | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/1oj2hn/eli5_what_do_the_letter_classifications_kroq_wfan/ | {
"a_id": [
"ccsejv1"
],
"score": [
4
],
"text": [
"K and W denote the assignment area, general east (w) and west (k) of the Mississippi, the other 3 letters are either requested by the registering party or randomly by the FCC."
]
} | [] | [] | [
[]
] |
|
2b79ew | why does everyone in the us seem to have an ac system? | Even in areas with very mild climates? I know, weird question but I'm not from the US. I travel a lot and I've been to the US a few times. It seems to be the only country where at least 9 out of 10 people have an AC system, even in small cheap apartments in mild climate states. Most places only have them in like big supermarkets and buildings, if any at all.
Whenever I tell a friend from the US I deal with 35C+ (95F+) temperatures without an AC they're usually baffled that I don't have an AC. Meanwhile I'm baffled they do, lol.
How come? Pretty much every hot country I've been to people just deal with 40C+ (104F+) temperatures without an AC system. Yet every single person I know with no exceptions from the US has an AC.
Also, doesn't this have some bad side effects for mother nature when every single house and apartment in tightly packed areas has an AC? And doesn't it make people more weak and sensitive to hot temperatures? Especially when they walk from a cooled house into a really hot outside? That sudden change would make my circulatory go all wonky lol.
EDIT: Thanks for the answers. I get the whole: "Because it's hot and humid!" reasoning, but there's many countries where it's a lot more hot and humid that don't plonk ACs everywhere. There has to be some event or trigger that caused ACs to popularize so much in the US other than: "Everyone outside 'Murrica is dumb for not having ACs!" lol. I'm not looking for the reason why people have an AC, that one is pretty obvious. I'm trying to figure out why almost everyone in the US does, but other places don't.
By the way, I wasn't negatively judging the US for having ACs everywhere, I find it rather good and wish more places were like that since I've experienced large scale heatwave deaths in 45C+/90%+ humidity countries, mostly elderly people. So no idea why I'm getting so many racist comments.
EDIT 2: Seems like nobody understood my question whatsoever besides one person. _URL_0_ | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/2b79ew/eli5_why_does_everyone_in_the_us_seem_to_have_an/ | {
"a_id": [
"cj2gt2h",
"cj2gzap",
"cj2gzp3",
"cj2h061",
"cj2h2xe",
"cj2h32w",
"cj2h4xa",
"cj2h7px",
"cj2h9x5",
"cj2hahw",
"cj2hcs7",
"cj2hfrk",
"cj2hgns",
"cj2hh2b",
"cj2hjf0",
"cj2hku6",
"cj2hmyw",
"cj2hnis",
"cj2hnm8",
"cj2hqoz",
"cj2i17h",
"cj2i3fg",
"cj2ieef",
"cj2iidc",
"cj2il2l",
"cj2iwsu",
"cj2izy5",
"cj2j0va",
"cj2j16u",
"cj2j20q",
"cj2j2gv",
"cj2j377",
"cj2j538",
"cj2j66k",
"cj2j6tq",
"cj2j8h9",
"cj2javg",
"cj2jc9h",
"cj2jcpx",
"cj2jczb",
"cj2jdmn",
"cj2jg8i",
"cj2jm0n",
"cj2jmht",
"cj2jmyo",
"cj2jqjy",
"cj2ju0r",
"cj2jzrm",
"cj2k0hh",
"cj2k0jz",
"cj2k0z6",
"cj2k1hb",
"cj2k1r7",
"cj2k5m0",
"cj2k6us",
"cj2kcha",
"cj2kejw",
"cj2kscg",
"cj2kxrb",
"cj2l28m",
"cj2l4zu",
"cj2lchn",
"cj2lcsy",
"cj2le0b",
"cj2le23",
"cj2lqh6",
"cj2lr1f",
"cj2m0y9",
"cj2m6nz",
"cj2m7s8",
"cj2m9nd",
"cj2micc",
"cj2mmeu",
"cj2n4es",
"cj2n7my",
"cj2ngbt",
"cj2nqp4",
"cj2ntrf",
"cj2nwai",
"cj2o0rz",
"cj2o5b0",
"cj2o6d9",
"cj2ocni",
"cj2oh1p",
"cj2ooxs",
"cj2ou6t",
"cj2pdx4",
"cj2px9s",
"cj2q0bi",
"cj2qa3n",
"cj2qiz3",
"cj2rfqo",
"cj2s5qz",
"cj2srb6",
"cj2t9ed",
"cj2t9ul",
"cj2tjk0",
"cj2tolf",
"cj2twet",
"cj32b61",
"cj32zzp",
"cj8ucbi"
],
"score": [
706,
191,
22,
31,
11,
13,
29,
12,
13,
13,
8,
169,
15,
15,
3,
2,
22,
89,
5,
2,
3,
155,
3,
9,
3,
2,
2,
11,
3,
2,
2,
7,
2,
3,
143,
5,
3,
7,
3,
3,
2,
12,
2,
2,
5,
2,
2,
13,
2,
12,
2,
2,
49,
6,
7,
2,
2,
2,
3,
2,
3,
3,
3,
7,
2,
2,
2,
6,
2,
2,
2,
2,
2,
2,
3,
2,
3,
2,
3,
6,
3,
3,
4,
5,
2,
4,
4,
2,
4,
2,
5,
2,
2,
2,
2,
2,
3,
2,
2,
3,
2,
2
],
"text": [
"It's hot, and they're affordable. ",
"I'm from Texas, which is definitely not a mild climate. People without AC have died from heatstroke in the summer. AC here is, I dare say, a necessity.\n\nI'm not sure where you come from, but I'd wager that those 35c days are rare. If you had to go through months in which the high temperature was over 100F every single day, you'd probably break down and get one too. \n\nAs for getting weak in hot temperatures, no. We're just used to it, I guess. I was encouraged to spend time outside as a kid, come in for a cool down and a glass of water, and go outside for a few more hours. I was very rarely sick as a child and my bodily temperature control is great. I usually feel warmer than most people in the winter, and I can handle hot summer temperatures better than most people I know. \n\nPlus, why on earth would you want to be sitting in ball soup if you had an alternative? I can't imagine sleeping at night without AC in the middle of a Texan summer. I'd probably go crazy.",
"Most people in the bay area (in California) don't. People in areas where the temperature is less temperate are more likely to make use of air conditioning units. ",
"Why does everyone outside the US not?\n\nI'm in Berlin right now and have to change multiple times a day. No one has AC in their homes. My sheltered body isn't used to having to deal with weather.\n\nEdit: To answer a few questions, as I've alluded to, yes, at the very least it makes me more sensitive to heat. Not being able to escape even 28+ degrees leaves me very uncomfortable.\n\nAnd AC doesn't really give off environmental waste so there's not an affect on the environment. But our electric bills to skyrocket during warm months. In general, though, AC units are bought and run fairly cheaply and many people have central air which is a bit more expensive. \n\nI think at the core though it's also a cultural thing. We like our comfort machines. Living in Germany I've found no one has clothes dryers; some people even don't have dishwashers. I've yet to also see a microwave here. Refrigerators and ovens and washing machines are also smaller. I think it's largely just different, accepted style of living.",
"AC is cheap, easy, and pleasant. And all that AC does is move heat from one place to another. Walk around the outer vent of the AC unit and it’s hot. As long as the system works correctly there is really almost no downside to the system. It doesn't make people more sensitive to temperature, known as acclimation, unless they spend at least a few days without going outside. The change from hot to cool is not so great that there is any damage to your body. If there was then workers who walk out of the summer heat into a freezer room would be really screwed. Plus having AC reduces the chance of dehydration, heat stroke, and other heat injuries, which are more common than you would think. Speaking from experience, that kind of injury has obvious symptoms, but it’s hard to tell it happening because one of the first symptoms is mental confusion. \n\nThat said, if the system doesn't work right the refrigerants released aren’t great for the environment, but that is usually a relatively small amount of Fluorocarbons, or their newer safer replacements, so the damage is minimal. There is also an increased risk in respiratory infections and things like mold if the filter is not cleaned or maintained regularly.",
"Practically nobody in Seattle does.",
"because a/c is pretty much the greatest invention ever(or close to it)\n\nI go to a hotel-or anyplace where I don't pay the electric bill and that a/c gets cranked as low as she'll go",
"Because we like it to be 72 degrees all the time",
"On the East coast, it's the humidity more than the heat. On the West coast, it's just the heat. In the North, well, what the hell... it's cheap enough to have it anyway.",
"I don't have one. I don't sleep much these days. ",
"In older homes in California they have 'swamp coolers' which are a water based cooling system. They don't work for shit when it's humid though.\n\nThey're everywhere mostly because they're cheap and as long as you don't have an old Freon based unit with a leak it doesn't have any environmental effects other than increased electricity use.\n\nI currently live in 'The South' and the humidity pretty much requires AC.",
"I live on Cape Cod. While our frigid, god awful, winters are what we're known for, the summer gets pretty damn hot sometimes. But that's not the issue. Everything molds in the summer. Its kind of a running joke. But yeah, I've lived plenty of places that didn't have AC on Cape, but the humidity causes such bad mold/mildew that a lot of people get them just to keep it at bay. ",
"Because it's hot.",
"A major part of this is the standardization of architecture. Homes in Arizona where it can be over 30 degrees consistently from June to September with peaks in the 40s are fundamentally the same as the homes in Minnesota where persistent temperatures under -10 define the winter. To accommodate, huge HVAC systems are installed.\n\nThe idea of energy cost is a relatively new one in an obstinate society. I live in Texas where a car parked outside can easily reach an interior temperature of 70 during the peak of summer, and no one comprehends the the idea of building for climate.",
"I own portable air conditioners but only use them if they're needed. ",
"Well, this only applies to families, but hotter temperatures increase the risk of SIDS (sudden infant death syndrome) \nEdit: sp",
"Anyone living in Virginia or below needs an AC unit. They're cheap, affordable, convenient and easy to use. I live in a state that it's pretty much illegal not to have air conditioning because it would be too hot inside.",
"because people in the U. S. won't tolerate heatwave deaths like people in europe will:\n\n_URL_0_",
"I live in texas, so if I didn't have one I would never be able to sleep in my house. As for the rest when I was in Seattle the hostel I stayed in didn't have one. I have some friends that live there as well and they don't have one either. \n\nFor the most part tho its becaus they are affordable, why not?",
"I'm just back from a 12 day work trip to Silicon Valley: I WISH the house I stayed in had AC!",
"I don't know. But I'm surprised more people here in the UK don't have them. Right now it's peaking at 32°C and all we can do is open some windows. Everything has been designed for cold, not for heat.",
"Isn't it weirder that we in Europe don't use AC systems more? \n\nWhere I live in Northern Europe we don't really need it since it's only about 1-2 months a year that it would be necessary to use it. But in the southern part of the continent I think it's strange that more people don't have one. To be honest I actually thought it was really common in Spain, France, Italy, Croatia etc because every time I've stayed at hotels in those countries you have an AC system.\n\nI've also been in Florida, USA and I understand why everyone there use AC systems.",
"For me, personally, I like having an AC just because it makes me more productive. If I am sweating and uncomfortable, I am less likely to be productive, just because I am somewhat miserable in high heat.\n\nThat isn't to say I *can't* deal with high heat, though. It just makes more sense to use an AC if it's affordable, which can help make me more comfortable and productive.",
"You miss the point, it's the cost of A/C that's changed the paradigm. I'm 51 and recall living in very hot, NJ, NC, CA and even NV with no air. I suspect it's similar to anything else in the tech world... Cost driven down by more efficient products combined with mass production. And lastly, I don't know where the OP lives, and no judgements here either, but it's also likely a socio-economic component is involved.\n\nAlso, as children, we were encouraged to be outside more than they are now. So many diversions inside versus outside. No judgements intended here.\n\nI've got to admit, given the choice of with or w/o A/C.... No competition. Btw, live in TX.",
"I live in Seattle and not many homes are equipped with AC",
"I live in the southeast US. For me, the relief of the AC is more from reduced humidity than lower temperatures. 95F is hot, but it's the 80% humidity that makes it miserable. ",
"I live in DC which is notoriously humid. If it weren't for that, I'd probably be OK with a large box fan. ",
"Canadian here. I don't see a reason to not have one.",
"It's cheap and we have access to a stable electrical grid. I pay a bit extra for renewable energy and my electric bill last month, here in Texas where it has been 90º F+ every day, was $130. And that is with us keeping our 1100 sf apartment at 70º F inside whenever we are at the apartment.",
"109$ gets you an AC from Walmart that easily lasts 3 years or so and only puts a few extra bills onto your electricity cost. Thats why",
"Because you can buy one for a hundred dollars at Wal-Mart. ",
"Well, around 75% of our geographical area has summer temperatures over 100F (do the math yourself you SI using socialists!) and where I live Kansas, it can get over 90F around 6 months out of the year, and extremely humid too. Having your house at around 70-75F with dry air just feels so amazing, that I'd change my eating habits, what clothes I wear, what car I drive, etc, before I even think about shutting off the A/C. Life is too short to live in a hot humid box ",
"I lived in the NE and I bought a window AC from Walmart for around $100usd. It was cheap enough and made my summers a lot more comfortable. There are some very hot and muggy days I'm the NE and the AC makes for a much better sleep. If it wasn't humid, I had the windows opened with a nice window fan to circulate, but once the humidity got bad in July/august it was really hard to sleep with. So the AC allowed me to sleep better and wake up not feeling like the grouch. ",
"Has to do with humidity and dew points. Moisture from the Gulf of Mexico sweeps through the eastern half of the USA, making for high humidity levels and uncomfortable conditions.\n\nI couldn't find it on google, but recall reading once that in pre-colonial times, some European explorer reported back that America was uninhabitable due to excessive humidity.",
"As an American, to me this is like asking, \"Why does everyone eat with forks and knives when you could just bury your face in the food and still get the same nutrients?\"\n\nBecause it's much better, that's why.",
"I'm from Canada and we have an A/C even though its only hot for 2 months here and we only use it when its unbearable it's a nice luxury to have.",
"Louisiana native here. I can testify 85f and near 90% humidity is fucking hot. I would gladly take a 100f+ dry heat any day. AC is required to survive down here. \n\nTl; dr Swamp ass in less than 5 min does not make for a good day. ",
"Well, at least in the South, it's because the alternative is swamp ass. \n\n",
"I live in Michigan. It was a high of 74 degrees Fahrenheit yesterday. I had the A/C on, set for 72. Why? Because that temperature feels really nice to me and I can afford nice things because I'm an American. A better question is why would you willingly live in conditions that make you worse-off when you have the means to live in more preferable conditions?",
"It gets hot as tits. ",
"I'm from australia and most if not all homes I go in to have them. I dont because I live in a shitty little unit with wooden floors that is surrounded almost completely. ",
"Why does everyone in Europe have central heating?",
"Because (A)merican (C)an",
"I live it Florida. It's always as hot as the sun here plus the humidity is killer. Before AC I'm not sure how people managed here.. ",
"It's interesting that you feel some health problems resulting from quick temperature changes. I once visited an ice sculpture display in Malaysia that had a brief waiting period at a mid range temperature before entering the refridgerated warehouse that held the display. They had signs up saying that it was for health purposes as well. \n\nI had to laugh. Where I live it's not uncommon for it to get to -40C in the winter. Nobody thinks twice about walking out the front door. We don't have special acclimatization rooms to gradually adjust. I've never heard of anyone having health problems from it either. Is it a common belief where you live that there is some health risk in rapidly changing temperatures? ",
"Midwest USA here. Besides the heat in the summer, it gets really muggy sometimes, with high dew points. AC is a great dehumidifier. Some days, I'll run the AC for awhile just to get the humidity down, without lowering the temperature much. It makes a big difference.",
"I semi-recently moved to the US from a very mild climate where the hottest summer would be about 26℃. I now live in Texas and that temperature sounds pretty Damn nice right now...",
"Architecture student chiming in:\n\nIn the parts of Europe and Northern Africa where the temperature often hits 30+ °C, cities and houses are built to accomodate the hot climate. High thermal mass to delay temperature changes, narrow streets to provide shade, etc.\n\nIn the U.S., buildings are much younger – most residential houses are not more than 30-40 years old. Energy has historically been laughably cheap, so AC has made sense from an economic perspective. Which allows you to build timber frame houses in hot, arid climates without thinking of thermal mass, positioning in relation to the sun, etc.",
"I live in Oklahoma, my grandmother talks often about growing up here without AC. It's obviously doable, however she also grew up without dishwashers, washing machines, cell phones, and the Internet...all things she has now. \n\nIt's about convenience...and nothing is as convenient during our 6+ months of hot, humid weather as a personal cooling machine in our house and cars. ",
"Where did you go in the US? Most people in the US live either places that get very hot(lower US) or places that are very humid(East Cost). Or both at the same time. Here in New York it can be 20C(70F) outside but you still need the AC on to filter out the humidity, otherwise you will sweat like a pig. In Europe a lot of people(say Germany) live inside the continent where the air is dry. So humidity is the main culprit. \n\n\n Another thing, US gets like 3 times as many sunny days as most of Europe. _URL_0_ Northern parts of the US get as much sun as Spain. Sun can heat up houses and cars up a lot. UK and Germany maybe get 1 or 2 sunny days a week, when in the US it is sunny 5-6 days each week.",
"Because 95 Fahrenheit in high humidity is unbearable. The U.S. is a huge place with a variety of climates.",
"Check out the most populated cities in the US in 1900 and again today. In a little over a hundred years, that list goes from East Coast cities to West Coast cities, made possible by the modern air-conditioner (among other reasons). ",
"Why does everyone in the US seem to wear shoes? I live in a favela in Rio de Janeiro and most of us get by with no shoes.\n\nWhy does everyone in the US seem to eat multiple times a day? I live in sub-Saharan Africa and I only eat once a week.",
"Because this is 2014?",
"I might have missed it he comments, but the US uses forced air for heating and cooling. We have gas fired furnace that heats a chamber and then air blows across it into a system of ducts throughout the house. In europe they primarily use radiant heating with hot water. Since the us system already has the duct running through the house adding a cooling system is easy and cheap. ",
"Because in most parts of the us it is both hot and cold, and ac units typically double as heating units.",
"I'm from Minnesota and as most people know it gets really cold in the winter months. However, in the summer it's necessary to have one because its humid and it's uncomfortable without it. If you were exercising outside you don't want to come into your house when it's the same temperature or even higher. Also you don't always have to have it running when it isn't hot.",
"I live in Florida, its really fucking hot.\n",
"I mean, I can go outside without my circulatory system getting wonky, so whose really weak? But yes, because most AC units are electrically powered and relatively cheap, most people have one. We don't like being uncomfortable in our own houses or workplaces. If you're comfortable, then you can relax, destress, not feel gross from sweat, and as a result be more willing to work harder with fewer breaks. I'm in China atm, I swear to god they *love* being uncomfortable. ",
"Hey why do you have indoor plumbing? Could just go outside and water the garden and give it some good fertilizer. Doesn't putting stuff down the drain have some bad side effects for mother nature when every single house and apartment in tightly packed areas has a flushing toilet? And doesn't it make people weak and sensitive to toilet paper? Especially when they walk from a 3-ply house into a 1-ply house? That sudden change would chafe my gentle under regions. ",
"I'll summarize it: electricity here is much cheaper than elsewhere in the world. ",
"Part of it is probably because most of the construction in the US is new. We aren't retrofitting old buildings, for the most part the new buildings are just built with AC. It has become a standard.\n\nI'm not sure where in Europe you're from but our climate isn't really mild. I live in Chicago and it is both Freezing in the winter and hot in the summer. Especially in the midwest, we don't have an ocean to keep us cool/warm. \n\nLike everyone else said, it's nice to have.",
"Electricity has been cheap for a long time here",
"For Europe specifically, one contributing factor is its position on the globe. The southernmost point in Europe (34 degrees 48 min) is still north of several US states.\n\nLouisiana and Florida are completely south of the southernmost point in Europe.\n\nThe majority of Arizona, New Mexico, Texas, Mississippi, Alabama and Georgia are farther south. In some the cities in these states, people either do not have heat, or never turn in on year round. Something that would be unlivable for much of Europe.\n\nThat explains the climate reasons, now for the economic. Much of the world between the hottest longitude lines are not considered wealthy. Most of Africa, Central and Eastern Asia and Central America are poverty stricken. These countries are less economically able to afford luxury items like central air conditioning. In the pockets of wealth in this region you see AC in common use where it is affordable.",
"In a lot of countries having an AC unit is either a status symbol or a luxury item. In the US it is just expected.",
"\"They should just put air conditioners on the highway\"",
" > Also, doesn't this have some bad side effects for mother nature when every single house and apartment in tightly packed areas has an AC?\n\nIn a Heat pump system, we are essentially transferring heat from one location to another using a refrigerant that boils at low temperatures. It's a closed system, which really only requires electricity. There is no \"waste\" per se.\n\nIn a standard AC system, the process works the same, but only goes one way. We use a furnace (either fossil fuel or electric) to provide heat in the winter.",
"I live in Louisiana. I can't even comprehend how someone would ask this question. \n\nI lived for 2 weeks without electricity after katrina and couldn't sleep for more than 30 minutes at the time. Opening a window doesn't work here... 90+ degree temperatures with 95%+ humidity is something that can't be explained. You have to experience it. ",
"Every state in the union is allowed to have two statues of historically significant people who were from that state in the US Capital. The man who invented ac is one of Florida's, it is a need not a want here.",
"Way late to the party, but I'll throw this in here.\n\nI'm from a country where it gets really hot in the summer. Really hot. as in we hit 40C on occasions and stretches of 35+C are normal. \n\nBut when you go inside a building, AC or not, it drops by 5 degrees. And in your actual apartment or flat it drops even more. So it might be 35 outside, but it's 25 inside. 25+fans is manageable. I never had an AC growing up (though they were becoming more and more common).\n\nThen I moved to Minnesota, where it gets to -40C on occasion. We have stretches of a month or *more* where it's below freezing. In the winter, anyway. \n\nIn the summer, it is insanely humid and gets to 35C or more. Not uncommon to have stretches of days on end where it's well over 30 *even at night*. In fact, a few years back when the heat-index was included, Minnesota was the *hottest place on Earth* (heat-indexed to **65C**). \n\nNow here's the thing. Because of the crazy winters, our houses are designed to suck heat in. If it's 20C outside, it's 25+ inside. If it's 30 outside, it can easily get to 40 inside. And *humid*. \n\nMy house didn't have AC when I moved into it. We kinda lived with it, but then we got a puppy and seeing that dog suffer was just too much. So I got a window unit which made part of the living-room bearable. Eventually I got central air instead, so now I can use the entire house. \n\nA few years ago it went out during a heat wave. The only part of the house we could be in for more than 10 minutes was the basement. \n",
"HVAC units have become standard and are often just automatically built into residential units. It's not even a choice for many people; it's a fact. A lovely and comfortable fact.",
"Humidity is a large factor. 35c at 50% humidity is VERY different from 35c at 100% humidity. \n\nAlso, wooden homes don't stay cool like brick homes. Heating and cooling is forced air, which doesn't work well in brick homes.",
"I live in Minnesota where summers are basically 80F with a handful of 90s and a couple days where we hit 100F. \n\nEveryone has AC. It's standard to put in central air for all homes being built. It uses the heating system so for very little added cost you have the option to keep your house cool.\n\nMaintenance is easy, every couple years have someone come take a look at your furnace/ac for a couple hundred bucks.\n\nCost of running it is a couple hundred dollars a summer. It is worth that to me, I get lazy in the heat and I can't sleep. Humidity sucks! We only run our AC if it's upper 80s and really humid or 90s for a couple days in a row.\n\nOf all the things humans do I don't think AC usage had much of an impact on mother nature except for the energy use.\n\nI don't have any problems going from AC to outside temp \n",
"Because it gets fucking hot",
"To add to this, as an European American, what you'll notice is that America is all about comfort. You will see a lot of people in public wearing not the latest fashion, but what's comfortable. Cars - large and comfortable, even if they handle worse or get bad gas mileage. Food - larger portions, less fancy. Of course these are generalizations but it's nice to not have to dress in extremely expensive clothes you can't even afford just to go buy some milk.",
"I'm visiting Germany for 2 weeks and it's the one time of the year it's hot and NO ONE has AC. it's silly to me, though I understand if it's only hot one month out of the year there isn't a real push for AC. But god damn, just have it in store for that one month, it isn't hard. ",
"Movie theaters were the early adopters of air conditioning in the US. They used it as a gimmick to sell tickets on hot summer days in the Great Depression and World War II era. After the war, the US enjoyed several decades of prosperity, dirt-cheap energy prices, the Baby Boom and plenty of affordable new housing. Appliances like air conditioners and televisions were now affordable to the masses. Meanwhile, as Europe rebuilt after the war (along with higher energy prices), maybe air conditioners were viewed more as a luxury than a necessity and thus never caught on. Just a theory :)",
"I live in Canada.. and almost everyone i know has an AC... i pity the people who dont in the summer... It could be because were so use of it being cold that the heat feels brutal even if its only +25-30C",
"Because it gets hot, and AC fixes that. There are probably some places AC is less standard, but I live in California, where it commonly gets over 100 degrees in the summer, and not having AC in those temps is just dangerous. I don't think it's even legal to build houses without ACs here.",
"Because in Texas during the summer, you have two options to cool off. \n\n1. AC\n\n2. Take a trip down to hell, because its colder there.",
"'Merica, that's why..",
"Because it gets hot outside, and AC keeps it nice on the inside.",
"I feel like a damn alien coming on Reddit sometimes. \"Why do you do these things!\" I like being comfortable man, jeeze.",
"Because we can afford AC/heating. Other countries where it is really hot (for example, Africa, India, some South American countries) the people are poor and cannot afford an ac/heating unit. If they could afford it they would have them. also some people are better adapted to heat then others. ",
"I come from New England. Most of the people who've lived here forever can deal with the winters, but get our 85-100 degree, 80-100% humidity summers going and we just don't do so well. Couple that with A/C and electricity being cheap, and almost everybody will have / use it.\n\nI like to say: In the winter I can just add more layers. But in the summer I can only remove so many before it's inappropriate.",
"If you go to Asia, you'll find that many people have aircon. So the hypothesis \"There's many countries where it's a lot more hot and humid that don't plonk ACs everywhere\" is....bullshit. In Southeast Asia, many, many, many homes have air conditioning. Their cars have air conditioning. The stores are air conditioned. When it's really hot, everyone congregates at malls where the air conditioning is cranked up. ",
"why not ?",
"One of the things to keep in mind is that climates in the U.S. tend to be considerably less mild than in Europe. The Gulf Stream has a warming effect in winter and a cooling effect in Summer. So if you look at two cities of aproximately the same lattitude [Chicago](_URL_0_) (41.87 N) and [Porto](_URL_1_) (41.15 N) the American city has hotter summers *and* colder winters. In August the average daily high for Chicago is 84.2 F (29 C) vs Porto's 78.3 F (25.7 C). In the winter we see the same pattern Chicago average low in January is 18.2F (-7.7 C) vs. Porto's 41.4F (5.2 C).\n\nIn fact, Chicago's *average* low in January is lower than Porto's record, while still having hotter average summers.",
"Because most Americans are wealthy enough to afford it and it vastly improves quality of life.",
"Even here in northern US, Minnesota, on the border w Canada, it's currently 92f w humidity. Everything is sticky without ac",
"Because we're the richest nation in the world and get what we want. ",
"In the Chicago area, we'll have wild, wild temperature swings, particularly in spring and fall. You can have a day start at 90F (32c) then drop to 60F (15c) in a single afternoon. Or the other way around, start at 60F and rise rapidly by noon. There's always a week or two every summer where we're hitting close to 100F (37c), usually with significant humidity since these rises/plunges are pushed in by various storm fronts, and some time in winter where we're hitting 0F (-17c).\n\nMost places will have heating and A/C systems to offset those changes.",
"Cause its hot and we're fat. ",
" > 35C+ (95F+) temperatures without an AC\n\nYou what?\n\nEveryone in the US has it because we can afford it and it's freakin' hot. It's become sort of a standard, because it's a largely richer country. I'd bet that the countries that DON'T have it are poor. ",
"Guess you've never been to the north.",
"We don't like sweating or taking multiple showers a day to keep the stench down. I think it's kind of funny people will live without something like an AC in hot temperatures even though how affordable they are now days. ",
"Next answer: we all have clean, running water because we like drinking it. ",
"Because I don't like to come home from my job at a 90f+ factory to a house that's 90f inside.",
"It costs $2-3 per day to keep my house at 72F when it's 100F outside. That is one of the biggest bang for your buck expenses I can think of in terms of general quality of life. Name one other thing you can acquire for that cheap that will provide that much comfort.",
" > Even in areas with very mild climates?\n\nThe US is very wealthy, and we tend to live in houses that have very low thermal mass. We've sort of adopted a societal expectation that you'll insulate the house and use mechanical A/C units to control the temperature instead of using the building's thermal mass and natural airflow to control temperature.\n\n > Also, doesn't this have some bad side effects for mother nature when every single house and apartment in tightly packed areas has an AC?\n\nOther than the energy draw, not really. On the other hand, this can use a lot of power if the building is poorly insulated or the home owner installs a unit that's a poor design for their particular climate.\n\n > And doesn't it make people more weak and sensitive to hot temperatures?\n\nThey're more likely to complain about it, but it doesn't induce any additional physical vulnerability.\n\n > That sudden change would make my circulatory go all wonky lol.\n\nIt doesn't have any significant effect. Your body gets used to it however you deal with climate.\n\n > I get the whole: \"Because it's hot and humid!\" reasoning, but there's many countries where it's a lot more hot and humid that don't plonk ACs everywhere.\n\nMost of those countries are also poor countries. The US is pretty exceptionally wealthy for a country with habitually hot and humid weather. Basically, we've developed our environmental conditioning this way because we're generally wealthy enough not to have to sweat it out.\n\n > There has to be some event or trigger that caused ACs to popularize so much in the US other than: \"Everyone outside 'Murrica is dumb for not having ACs!\" lol. \n\nThere's also a cultural preoccupation with reshaping the world to suit our needs, rather than adapting our expectations to the world around us. There's probably some influence from how we industrialized too.",
"Capitalism. As a result of capitalism, our electricity is very abundant and therefore relatively affordable. ",
"A lot of you are saying that ACs are necessities, but honestly, for the majority of people, I believe that they are not. Exceptions would include the weak, elderly, sick, or anyone whose body cannot withstand intense temperatures.\n\nI live in San Diego, and I can tell you that it gets hot here. This place has a good reputation for nice weather, but honestly Orange County is better. \n\nFor all of my life living here, I never once needed a heater or AC. In the winter, when it takes my feet 30 minutes to get warm so I can sleep, a heater would be nice but not absolutely needed. Right now in summer, any amount of movement can get you sweating and uncomfortable, but it's not needed.\n\nWater is needed. Food is needed. Sleep is needed. Comfort is not."
]
} | [] | [
"http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/2b79ew/eli5_why_does_everyone_in_the_us_seem_to_have_an/cj2tn4l"
] | [
[],
[],
[],
[],
[],
[],
[],
[],
[],
[],
[],
[],
[],
[],
[],
[],
[],
[
"http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2003_European_heat_wave"
],
[],
[],
[],
[],
[],
[],
[],
[],
[],
[],
[],
[],
[],
[],
[],
[],
[],
[],
[],
[],
[],
[],
[],
[],
[],
[],
[],
[],
[],
[],
[],
[
"http://i.imgur.com/vYpbh.png"
],
[],
[],
[],
[],
[],
[],
[],
[],
[],
[],
[],
[],
[],
[],
[],
[],
[],
[],
[],
[],
[],
[],
[],
[],
[],
[],
[],
[],
[],
[],
[],
[],
[],
[],
[],
[],
[],
[
"http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chicago#Climate",
"http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Porto#Climate"
],
[],
[],
[],
[],
[],
[],
[],
[],
[],
[],
[],
[],
[],
[]
] |
|
3d8633 | during a commercial break, what happens to live-audience shows that are not broadcast live? | Do the hosts just jump into the next segment after a few seconds of clapping from the last segment?
Or does the audience actually wait around a little for the start of the next part?
| explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/3d8633/eli5during_a_commercial_break_what_happens_to/ | {
"a_id": [
"ct2ojfa"
],
"score": [
2
],
"text": [
"It's called an intermission. They go for a break to get drinks or food or stuff like that. "
]
} | [] | [] | [
[]
] |
|
3w6097 | odor eliminators | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/3w6097/eli5_odor_eliminators/ | {
"a_id": [
"cxto8ig"
],
"score": [
2
],
"text": [
"It is kind of like bubbles. You are spraying a kind of chemical which is ring shaped and it traps the odor chemicals inside that ring which stops the odor. This happens at the molecular level. \n\n_URL_0_"
]
} | [] | [] | [
[
"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Febreze#Ingredients"
]
] |
||
4229s5 | the procedures taken if mid surgery there is an emergency (active shooter, tornado, fire) | [deleted] | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/4229s5/eli5the_procedures_taken_if_mid_surgery_there_is/ | {
"a_id": [
"cz725vk"
],
"score": [
3
],
"text": [
"It depends, each hospital is different... it wouldn't really affect anything.\n\nActive shooter, you remain in place, stay away from windows. Based on how OR rooms are situated, it's never off a hallway... there's prep rooms, etc. Only certain people get in and out. Not a concern. If the shooter is in the room, you try to disarm them or wait for security.\n\nFire, it's stay in place behind fire doors. Again, not an issue unless it's in the OR theatre. At that point you extinguish while trying to maintain your sterile field.\n\nI don't know about tornados... we don't get those."
]
} | [] | [] | [
[]
] |
|
27dbv0 | how does the brain decide what is funny and what is not? | For some people, everything is hilarious, even things that morally or ethically shouldn't be. For others, their humor is lighter.
Is it their experiences that dictate what is funny and what is not? Are the people who enjoy darker humor different in any way than those who do not?
ALSO: What exactly is laughter, anyway? | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/27dbv0/eli5_how_does_the_brain_decide_what_is_funny_and/ | {
"a_id": [
"chzpbmu",
"chzuq4s",
"chzv04w"
],
"score": [
3,
13,
2
],
"text": [
"Humour is a tough one to nail down. Generally the funniest jokes are the ones where people end up looking like assholes or idiots. Laughter is suspected to be an aggressive reaction to things, as other primates bare their teeth in aggressive displays similar to laughter. We laugh at people when they fall down and hurt themselves. Humour is also about the unexpected, generally when it isn't business as usual things are seen as funny. ",
"Humor is literally a shift in the frame of reference. You expect one thing, you get another. (Alternately, you don't know what to expect, and what you get is still unexpected.)\n\nConsider the knock-knock joke:\n\nWhen you say \"who's there?' the expectation is the name of the knocker. Instead you get something else.\n\nWhen you attempt to clarify, you are expecting an answer that will clear your confusion. Instead, you get an answer that was unexpected, but in retrospect makes (some) sense.\n\nYou laugh.\n\nPeople speculate that humor evolves from encountering the unexpected, and then signalling to others that the unexpected is not dangerous. If Oggh heard a noise in the bush and sent Blerg to investigate, if Blerg saw that it was a tiny squirrel had scared Oggh, he would be relieved, and signal to Oggh that he had been frightened by a squirrel. They were expecting/fearing a tiger and got a squirrel instead. Hilarious, no?",
"Irony is probably the source of all laughter. People laugh when they're expecting to see or hear one thing but end up getting another and I think the firmer the expectation the harder the laugh when it's broken. For most people a bit of cleverness helps - e.g. the writing of a good comedian, but my friends and I have been known to laugh at the sheer ridiculousness of natural events, often exclaiming \"what are the odds of that happening?\"\n\nI would think that some of those who laugh at unethical things laugh at them strictly *because* the things are unethical. You'll find this is the case with many cynics, they laugh because the event that took place stands in ironic contrast to accepted moral standards. "
]
} | [] | [] | [
[],
[],
[]
] |
|
96iybk | what is that clicking sound that nuclear radiation detectors make? | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/96iybk/eli5_what_is_that_clicking_sound_that_nuclear/ | {
"a_id": [
"e40s3pp",
"e40sr13"
],
"score": [
12,
2
],
"text": [
"The noise is because of how [Geiger Counters](_URL_0_) function.\n\nThe Geiger counter has a chamber filled with an inert gas, like helium, and a high voltage applied to it. If high energy radiation hits the helium gas, it gives enough energy to the Helium atoms to bump electrons off their orbitals, so the atoms become non-inert (electrically charged), and thus react to the high voltage, and there's a small discharge of the electricity.\n\nThis discharge sounds like a \"pop\" if you hook it up to a speaker, because it's like a mini-lightning (thunder).",
"When an energetic particle enters the Geiger–Müller tube, it ionizes some of the gas inside and that allows a brief current to flow. That current results in a small voltage drop from the usual 400-900 volt DC which is applied to the tube. The momentary voltage drop is passed by a capacitor which blocks DC. The voltage drops are applied to a meter and speaker. No amplifier is needed. "
]
} | [] | [] | [
[
"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Geiger_counter"
],
[]
] |
||
2ekz6j | how do tires on the landing gears of heavy airplanes withstand the speed and weight of the airplane when landing? | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/2ekz6j/eli5how_do_tires_on_the_landing_gears_of_heavy/ | {
"a_id": [
"ck0hbq7",
"ck0hzna"
],
"score": [
4,
2
],
"text": [
"They're big tires, so the force is spread out over a larger area, and they use quite a few tires—a Boeing 747 has 18 tires on it—further distributing the load. \n\nThey use thick rubber, so they're stronger than your average tire by a pretty wide margin.\n\nEven with these, they don't last particularly long. Any given tire will last through a few dozen landings; [this](_URL_0_) pilot states anywhere from 10-200 landings. Compared to the tens of thousands of miles that a car tire can last, that's almost nothing. ",
"They are also filled with nitrogen rather than air to prevent expansion."
]
} | [] | [] | [
[
"http://www.reddit.com/r/askscience/comments/1u8m3g/how_quickly_to_airline_jumbo_jet_tires_wear_out/cefmk0d"
],
[]
] |
||
2isa3d | what would happen if the richest people on earth asked their banks to pay them out their fortune in cash? | Lets say the 5000 Richest People on earth all call their banks, telling them they want all their money in cash as soon as possible. Is there even enough money in cash stored at banks for them to pay out?
Or lets make the scale smaller, say Bill Gates calls his bank and tells them he wants 20 billion in cash as soon as possible. How would a bank handle this kind of request? | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/2isa3d/eli5_what_would_happen_if_the_richest_people_on/ | {
"a_id": [
"cl4z6na",
"cl4z6vc",
"cl4z7r5"
],
"score": [
7,
6,
2
],
"text": [
"Bill Gate's bank would tell him to shove off, since he doesn't have $20 billion in cash. He probably has tens of millions in cash, so the bank would probably just ask him to wait a couple weeks so they could assemble the cash and give it to him.\n\n & nbsp;\n\nSimilar logic with other rich people.",
"Most *wealthy* people don't have 100% of their assets as liquid. part of their wealth may be stock or other possessions like their house or cars or other non liquid assets. \n\n\nWhile I'm sure they do maintain a good amount of liquid money in banks or even in cash you should expect that to be the smaller percent of their wealth. \n\nA better question would be what would happen if all the wealthiest people liquidated all their assets at once. ",
"Well, this question has a false assumption built in. You're assuming that most of a rich persons money is just sitting in a bank. It isn't, so when bill gates asks his bank for 20 billion they would likely inform him he doesn't have that much in his account."
]
} | [] | [] | [
[],
[],
[]
] |
|
2uzwby | why do couples that are having trouble getting pregnant want a biological child so much when there are many children in need of adoption? | I have watched a few people spend years dealing with In Vitro fertilization and going through emotional turmoil when the process doesn't work and they have to start over again.
My question is: If they really just want to have a child and family, why do they not adopt? Is there some other driving factor making them want a child besides those things? I don't feel like I have the whole picture and it's definitely not something you can just go up to someone going through In Vitro/infertility problems and ask them about without being an asshole | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/2uzwby/eli5_why_do_couples_that_are_having_trouble/ | {
"a_id": [
"cod655h",
"cod6ayd",
"cod6e80",
"cod7w2o"
],
"score": [
2,
3,
2,
2
],
"text": [
"Not a parent are you? The feeling you get from the birth of a child that YOU helped make is beyond words.",
"It is the innate human drive to carry on the individuals own genetic heritage. If you adopt, you and your partners DNA is not passed to future generations. This also plays into an individuals want/need to be genetically immortal via its offspring. ",
"This is a complex issue, but the short answer is biology, sentimentality, and socialization.\n\nPeople are biologically driven to reproduce, which at it's basic level means ensuring your genetics live on for another generation. Thus, people are biologically driven to have children that have their genes.\n\nMany couples also have a desire to share in the creative experience in producing a baby. Thus it's important for them to have a biological child because it can be considered a physical expression of the love they share together. A baby is literally both of them combined into one. \n\nFinally, our society reinforces the above notion subtly and overtly, plus generally stigmatizes children available for adoption as emotionally scarred, damaged, disabled in some way, potentially psychotic, and all sorts of other stereotypes that make many people disinclined to adopt. ",
"In the adoption market, one child is not the same as another.\n\nHealthy newborn babies are snapped up almost immediately. However, the older a children becomes (amongst other factors), the more baggage they carry with them.\n\nNext time you're walking down the street, take a gander at the homeless guys you see. Now, you could take them home, shower them with love, and maybe turn their lives around. How likely are you to actually do it?\n\nThat's pretty much the choice facing parents who adopt older children. Older children have either been taken from their parents (ie: they're damaged) or they've been bouncing around the system (ie: they're damaged). Fixing them is not a task for the faint-hearted. It's a lot easier to just start fresh."
]
} | [] | [] | [
[],
[],
[],
[]
] |
|
wu7b9 | bullet penetration | This video _URL_0_ was on the front page today. Why do the watermelons explode like that? Why doesn't the bullet just leave a clean hole behind? | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/wu7b9/eli5_bullet_penetration/ | {
"a_id": [
"c5gh9ha",
"c5gk7az"
],
"score": [
3,
2
],
"text": [
"There are different kinds of bullets. Some bullets (called [full metal jacket bullets](_URL_0_)) are surrounded in a hard metal like steel and have rounded or pointed tips. They usually leave a clean hole.\n\nOther bullets, like the ones in this video, have [soft or hollow points](_URL_1_). They expand inside the target. Police and people who carry guns for their own protection prefer these bullets for two main reasons:\n\n- The bullet's expansion causes it to stop inside the target, keeping it from going through the target and possibly hurting someone else.\n\n- The bullet spreading out causes more damage to the target. If someone is trying to attack you, you are trying to stop them fast, so you want to do as much damage as fast as possible. This is what causes the watermelons to explode - all the bullet's energy is put into the watermelon.",
"Take the same gun and shoot a pumpkin. What does it do? It doesn't explode. Why does the watermelon get to explode but the pumpkin doesn't?\n\nIt all comes down to water: water does NOT like to be moved quickly, but air can be pushed away with ease. When a bullet hits the watermelon, it really, REALLY wants to go through it, but it has to push the water out of the way. Because the bullet pushes it so quickly, the watermelon essentially explodes.\n\nThe pumpkin, however, doesn't explode because there's a lot of air inside. The bullet can travel through the pumpkin quite easily because it just has to push the air inside around a bit.\n\nIt has very little to do with the shape of the bullet and a lot to do with the velocity of the bullet. The fast the bullet goes, the harder it pushed the water aside."
]
} | [] | [
"http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=O1d7i3i0LLI"
] | [
[
"http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Full_metal_jacket_bullet",
"http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/JHP"
],
[]
] |
|
1bn3ow | why do songs become popular on the radio months after they were released? | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/1bn3ow/eli5_why_do_songs_become_popular_on_the_radio/ | {
"a_id": [
"c98lh3a"
],
"score": [
2
],
"text": [
"There are a few reasons:\n\n1) The song was not expected to be popular. The album comes out and after a little while the internet discovers how cool track 7 is - marketing people pick up on it and jam it on the radio to sell more albums.\n\n2) It is planned to not conflict with another song. If Kanye has a new album he'll release a single. Then a little while later they might start promoting a second song to keep sales up."
]
} | [] | [] | [
[]
] |
||
258ty3 | proton cancer treatment | I have a family member who has cancer in multiple locations (Brain and lungs so far) - recently diagnosed.
They are suggesting Proton Therapy and I looked it up, but I don't really understand. | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/258ty3/eli5_proton_cancer_treatment/ | {
"a_id": [
"cheu7cy"
],
"score": [
3
],
"text": [
"It's very simple once you understand some basic biological concepts.\n\nCancer is the uncontrolled growth and reproduction of cells.\n\nCells require DNA to reproduce themselves and when DNA is damaged tremendously cell reproduction will usually just fail.\n\nRadiation destroys DNA as well as cells.\n\nThey're going to focus beams of radiation on the tumors to irradiate them. This will hopefully kill cancerous cells or at least destroy their genetic sequence making it impossible for the tumors to continue growing and damaging his body.\n\nI wish you and your relative the best of luck. I've had a few family members suffer from cancer as well."
]
} | [] | [] | [
[]
] |
|
4fhdwc | why are so many countries aiming for 2% inflation? | Why is it good for things to get more expensive, why is there no parallel or greater wage growth target, and what makes 2% the gold standard?
Edit: thanks guys for covering this, much appreciated. I'd mark it explained but I'm new to this and don't know how | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/4fhdwc/eli5_why_are_so_many_countries_aiming_for_2/ | {
"a_id": [
"d28skgy",
"d28t1tk",
"d28ws4f",
"d2916st"
],
"score": [
5,
2,
9,
2
],
"text": [
"Inflation is a side effect of growth. As more people have more money, they can demand more goods/services which cause prices to rise since demand (generally) outstrips supply over the short-run.\n\n2% has historically been a smooth and stable level of inflation, not too fast... but still representing a reasonable amount of growth in the economy.\n\nTargeting wage growth would require much more intense regulation in areas of the business world that governments have not been involved in.\n",
"There's a link between inflation and economic growth (usually measured by the Gross Domestic Product, or GDP). \n\nIf your GDP is low, it's usually the case that unemployment is high. Any hiring sprees have very little effect on inflation in the short term because so many people are out of work that the increased worker spending still doesn't cause products to fly off the shelves.\n\nHowever, if your GDP is high, unemployment is usually low. When labor is further demanded, there are a lot of ways to attract workers from other businesses, but any of them inevitably cost the company money, and some of that cost will be borne by increases in prices for the product. Hence, GDP growth, in this situation, leads to some inflation.\n\nMost countries are willing to tolerate a little inflation if it means that their countries are being close to maximally productive. ",
"Economists generally agree that around 2% inflation is a rate that is desirable for an economy. Basically the reason this number is chosen is that it provides a balance between goals the government hopes to achieve .\n\nThe 2% rate of inflation is chosen as:\n\n1. at this amount , inflation is high enough to encourage consumer spending. (people spend money rather than saving it, as overtime their money loses its purchasing power.)\n2. But Inflation is low enough that it maintains consumer and business confidence in the economy, meaning that consumers keep spending and that businesses continue to invest and expand their business. \n\nGreater wage growth does not have a target as there is no real agreement on the appropriate level of wage growth due to difference in each industry.\n\n",
" > Why is it good for things to get more expensive\n\nBecause it encourages people to spend money, which in turn grows the economy. \n\n > why is there no parallel or greater wage growth target,\n\nA gov't can influence inflation directly with fiscal policy. They cannot directly control wages.\n\n > what makes 2% the gold standard?\n\n2% is a good middle ground between incentive and not eroding people's savings."
]
} | [] | [] | [
[],
[],
[],
[]
] |
|
56ug4s | how does new information still get uncovered from classified state archives after decades of research and analysis? | For example, new information that emerges from the archives of the USSR and the KGB. I have no clear example right now though.
Or, something that happens in my country, new information on Ceaușescu / the Romanian communist regime.
Former communist archives have been studied since the '90s, how come there is still new information to be published / revealed?
There's also things like the Vatican's archives, which are still protected by the Vatican, obviously. But communist regimes no longer exist to protect the secrets found in the former state archives, right?
(Let's not limit ourselves to the communist archives; these were the only examples that I could think of at the moment.) | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/56ug4s/eli5_how_does_new_information_still_get_uncovered/ | {
"a_id": [
"d8mfzj2"
],
"score": [
3
],
"text": [
"There are several reasons. \n\n1. First and most obvious, it's **a huge amount** of information to go through. The people digging through it all are usually academic researchers looking for some specific thing for their research. Nobody is just sitting down to read millions of pages of decades-old government papers just to see if something interesting pops up.\n\n2. Intentional obfuscation. Governments are paranoid, and dictatorships tend to be hyper-paranoid. It's likely sensitive information, when it was even recorded, was hidden. It's easy to lose a few incriminating files in a giant ocean of totally mundane documents.\n\n3. Even though the old governments are gone, new governments may not be interested in revealing everything. Remember that a lot of the guys who were young bureaucrats during the Commie days are still around and may be in powerful positions now. They have a strong motive to keep anything secret that might reflect poorly on them."
]
} | [] | [] | [
[]
] |
|
60zqbv | why do employers ask you to resign instead of just firing you? | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/60zqbv/eli5_why_do_employers_ask_you_to_resign_instead/ | {
"a_id": [
"dfalpjj",
"dfalqhq",
"dfals60",
"dfamvcm",
"dfamwz2",
"dfanj1i",
"dfbciww"
],
"score": [
9,
7,
23,
16,
4,
5,
2
],
"text": [
"Depends on the place. A lot of places do it so you can't later sue for wrongful termination. Others still do it so you can't demand severance pay or a severance package.",
"It looks much better on a resume / any document that shows employment history. It avoids a black mark on your background and, in the case of some companies, makes their calculated turnover rate lower than it would be if they flat-out fired you. In most cases, it's a favor to the employee.",
"In the U.S., in most places, at least, if you resign then it is harder to get unemployment. If they fire you, it is easier to get unemployment. \n\nAlso, for higher end jobs or jobs under contract/with union protections, there are often ways to contest being fired, which can make the process longer and more expensive. If you resign, that's avoided. It can also make it harder for you to come back later and claim that they wronged you in some way as part of lawsuit since they can say that you left voluntarily. ",
"Companies will do this to avoid paying severence. As a general rule if you have done nothing wrong you should not do it as it could mean you receive no severence pay. Only resign if it is a benefit to you.\n\nIt should be noted that at least where I live if you are told resign or be fired you are likely still entitled to severence pay even if you resign because it was not really a resignation. They fired you. They may argue that you had a choice but you didn't because you were losing your job either way. \n\nSource: an employment law radio show I hear every day in the tractor as I feed my cows.",
"In addition, in many professional fields (law and securities in my case), you have a permanent record that follow you around everywhere you work in the field - in securities this is called your U4 form. If you are straight up fired, the 'cause' goes on your U4 - this is called 'getting your [U4](_URL_0_) marked up' - its a very bad thing if you are trying to work in higher levels of finance eg more than some shitty institutional salesman or private banker. I've ditched candidates for having a marked up U4 a bunch of times.\n\nIf you resign (or are laid off) no markup on your U4, so its kinda a courtesy thing. ",
"The main reason is so you can't file a labor complaint or sue for wrongful termination. When you resign, it is your choice, and that makes it much harder to make a complaint later.\n\nIt is usually a kind of negotiated exit. Let's say you were pretty sure an employee was stealing, and you just want them gone. You don't want to fire them because without ironclad proof, it could go very bad for you in court. \n\nInstead you might give them the option of resigning before you called the cops and started a big messy investigation. If they were guilty, they might accept that deal rather than face legal charges. You get rid of them, they stay out of jail, everyone is happen.\n\nWhile it is true it is harder to get unemployment if your resign, this is rarely the reason you are asked to resign.",
"Working in HR, I can think of several reasons off the top of my head:\n\n1. Future employment. We understand the \"being fired\" can follow you in a way that leaving on your own does not. Believe it or not, we very often have this sort of thing in mind. We may not want you to work here any more, but we're not trying to screw you out of getting another job.\n\n2. Just makes everything easier. Don't get me wrong, we've straight up fired plenty of people if it is necessary and right. However, when possible, it is simply easier to negotiate a voluntary release. When this happens, there is a severance package offered as well as a release of any claims, confidentiality agreement, etc... It's just a smoother transition than a hard firing, and avoids any complications down the road from a disgruntled former employee.\n\n3. Unemployment. Certainly some employers try to get you to resign so that they aren't on the hook through their unemployment insurance. Depending on the nature of your release, some times the courts will see through this tactic, but it is certainly another obstacle. I currently work in an industry that is exempt from unemployment altogether, so it is not a concern for us. However, in previous workplaces, that has come up.\n\n4. PR, both internal and external. We try hard to maintain confidentiality on employee matters. It's easier for us to do that when an employee resigns themselves. And while there is always \"talk\" when someone leaves, this shortens that conversation considerably.\n\n5. Dignity. For many people who are on the verge of being let go, the know that this job is no longer right for them. Giving them the opportunity to leave of their own accord affords people some dignity and self-respect that being fired can often steal from you. Not completely, for sure, but often somewhat."
]
} | [] | [] | [
[],
[],
[],
[],
[
"https://www.finra.org/sites/default/files/AppSupportDoc/p015111.pdf"
],
[],
[]
] |
||
1udhuv | what's the difference between the labour party and the liberal democrats in the uk? | I'm an American, and I was wondering what the difference was between the two parties. From a wikipedia standpoint, they seem similar - both being more progressive than the Conservatives. Also, in votes, do the two parties usually vote together? | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/1udhuv/eli5_whats_the_difference_between_the_labour/ | {
"a_id": [
"cegyt8n"
],
"score": [
6
],
"text": [
"The Labour Party's ideological tradition is democratic socialism, i.e. the establishment of state ownership of the means of production and the abolition of capitalism by democratic means, but they have moderated that stand somewhat with \"New Labour's\" so-called \"third way,\" which was adopted to regain popularity after the fall of Communism made democratic socialism look like a bad idea. Now, they basically support a \"mixed economy\" that is essentially free-market in nature with heavy government intervention.\n\nThe Liberal Democrats' ideological heritage comes mainly from the old Liberal (or Whig) Party, which endorsed *classical liberalism* in the 1800s: free trade, laissez-faire, universal suffrage, and personal freedom. However, the Liberal Party gradually became more socialistic, and eventually merged with the Social Democrats, who split off from the Labour Party in the late 70s when it was still highly socialistic and committed to a policy of wide-ranging nationalization. Thus, they adopted a stance that was less interventionist than \"Old Labour\" but still more interventionist than the classical liberals.\n\nThe Conservatives (or Tories) have also changed radically from their pre-20th century views. Under Margaret Thatcher, they gained prominence by adopting many policies that would have been more in line with the 19th century Liberals, moving toward a (relatively) more pro-capitalist, pro-laissez-faire approach. In fact, Thatcher even claimed William Gladstone (the famous pro-laissez-faire Liberal Prime Minister of the 19th century) as a role model and claimed that he would have been a Tory had he lived in her era (whether that is true or not is beside the point).\n\nThe Liberal Democrats are currently in coalition with the Conservatives. Both parties are dominated by an economic view that basically supports a mixed economy with somewhat less government intervention than Labour wants (there are some factions in the Conservatives that want rather purer capitalism and some factions in the Lib-Dems that are more socialistic). David Cameron is certainly not as in favor of economic liberty as was Thatcher.\n\nThe main difference between the two is that the Liberal Democrats are (or are supposed to be, anyway) more in favor of individual freedoms in the personal sphere. The Conservatives still have a great deal of influence from the socially conservative wing that is more in favor of cracking down on drugs, pornography, homosexuality, etc. The Liberal Democrats are supposed to be balancing that out. Also, the Liberal Democrats are rather more pro-EU than many Conservatives, many of whom are anti-EU altogether and especially anti-immigrant.\n\nAs for whether Labour or the Liberal Democrats is more \"progressive\" than the other or than the Conservatives, that depends entirely on what you mean by that term. Labour is more in favor of government intervention in the economy, but does not have a great record on privacy and individual social autonomy. The Liberal Democrats are generally more pro-capitalist than Labour (but not to the extent that the Liberals were), but tend to be more in favor of privacy and individual social autonomy."
]
} | [] | [] | [
[]
] |
|
53q0rb | how does bell's experiment disprove local hidden variable theory | I have no academic relationship with physics so this might be a really stupid question. I apologize.
As far as I understand, randomness of polarization is a vital point of Bell's experiment. But if local hidden variable theory held, then the universe would (or could?) be completely deterministic, so polarization wouldn't really be random. Isn't this a loophole?
No need for an actual ELI5. I'm fine with ELI20. | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/53q0rb/eli5how_does_bells_experiment_disprove_local/ | {
"a_id": [
"d7vb11s"
],
"score": [
2
],
"text": [
"Indeed, to deal with one particular loophole these tests you need to be able to choose which measurements you're going to do on your particles (for example, what directions you'll be measuring polarization relative to), and you need to do it such that each of your particles can't get information about your measurement choice for the other. So, for example, in [this experiment](_URL_0_) they randomly and quickly set what measurements they'll do right before measuring, and they do this independently at the two detectors that are more than a kilometer apart.\n\nSo sure, if you think that the universe is completely deterministic and what measurements you will do and their outcomes are predetermined, then your entangled particles would have their values determined in advance by definition. How you would test this idea, I'm not sure, and it doesn't really let you predict anything, so as a scientific explanation it's not super satisfying to a lot of people.\n\nWhat Bell's test shows is that, *assuming that making a random choice is possible,* you cannot explain the experimental results with a local hidden variable theory."
]
} | [] | [] | [
[
"http://www.nature.com/nature/journal/v526/n7575/full/nature15759.html"
]
] |
|
1d1t4x | how do facebook "meme" pages get revenue from 'likes' and 'shares'? | I understand how businesses get revenue from their Facebook pages (since it is more or less advertising), but for pages that only post memes or are for a 'cause' (such as the recent "R.I.P. For Boston Massacre Victims" page being for sale for $1000), how do they get worth? How does thousands of people liking and sharing their half-assed picture get them any money? | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/1d1t4x/eli5_how_do_facebook_meme_pages_get_revenue_from/ | {
"a_id": [
"c9m24vx"
],
"score": [
3
],
"text": [
"They don't, but if someone buys the page they can then post a status and get something in front of all of those people who liked it, and thats valuable to some people. "
]
} | [] | [] | [
[]
] |
|
3kr2ky | what happens to cause places to become abandoned, and why are so many belongings left behind? | It's eerie seeing abandoned buildings, but even creepier when stuff is just left behind. What causes this? | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/3kr2ky/eli5_what_happens_to_cause_places_to_become/ | {
"a_id": [
"cuzrncy"
],
"score": [
2
],
"text": [
"A building becomes abandoned typically because the people there did not pay. \nThey might not be able to pay a bank for their loan, so the bank foreclosed it. \nThey might not be able to pay for the things they would do inside the building, or they decided it would save money not to pay for the things they would do inside the building and instead do it somewhere else. \n \nNow you have to pay people to move things. If that thing is very large you have to pay alot of money. So when they move out, they might pay people to move the expensive things that are small. If they had something like a very old machine or furniture, nobody would want to buy it and it might be cheaper and better to buy a new one. \nSo rather than waste money paying someone to move it, they just leave it there."
]
} | [] | [] | [
[]
] |
|
jab4i | can someone explain sister cities to me li5? | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/jab4i/can_someone_explain_sister_cities_to_me_li5/ | {
"a_id": [
"c2ag11c",
"c2ag11c"
],
"score": [
3,
3
],
"text": [
"When two cities are about the same size, have the same factories, or have mountains and rivers like each other. They form a partnership and agree to be friends. They usually exchange gifts like statues or art. Then, people from each city visit each other and see how they do things in their city. ",
"When two cities are about the same size, have the same factories, or have mountains and rivers like each other. They form a partnership and agree to be friends. They usually exchange gifts like statues or art. Then, people from each city visit each other and see how they do things in their city. "
]
} | [] | [] | [
[],
[]
] |
||
6q7avl | why does car ignition work as it does? (instead of having a button) | Why does car ignition work as it does? (I mean why do you need to turn key and hold it to start the car) instead of just having a button - > Press once and it automatically starts the engine.
I know many newer cars have buttons but even in those cases - you need to hold the button until car starts up.
What makes ignition system requiring constant input rather than just one-time trigger/input?
Not sure about flair: Engineering or Technology, setting Engineering as there is more engineering in cars than technology. | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/6q7avl/eli5_why_does_car_ignition_work_as_it_does/ | {
"a_id": [
"dkv3qwe"
],
"score": [
3
],
"text": [
"Newer buttons you just need to press quickly, I have a new Honda and that's just a quick push not a hold\n\nOlder keyed ignitions when you turned them from ON to START you were triggering a relay which connected power to the starter motor. If you remove the key from the start position then the relay turns off and the starter loses power so you have to hold it there until the car starts\n\nIt was only relatively recently that tech moved to a point where we're comfortable with keyless ignition. To do keyless ignition you need a good way to detect the key is in the car and that it is the right key, this is needed for theft prevention and so unattended children don't start the car and roll away. To do a quick push button ignition requires more synchronization between the starter circuit and the ECU, more things going on means more hardware means more $$$ for something that people aren't necessarily willing to pay more for. You also need to overcome the hundred years of inertia of holding the key/button in the start position until the car starts."
]
} | [] | [] | [
[]
] |
|
26j9p5 | what exactly are ukips (uk independence party) goals? | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/26j9p5/eli5_what_exactly_are_ukips_uk_independence_party/ | {
"a_id": [
"chrkg4q"
],
"score": [
3
],
"text": [
"Well, the first thing to keep in mind is that all that's happened is they've got a small number of seats in the EU Parliament, nothing else.\n\nThey'll probably get a fair showing in the General Election next year sadly, but chances of them getting a majority are basically nil.\n\nTheir biggest policy to withdraw from the EU. \n\nThey want to institute a procedure for the public to call for a binding referendum on any issue.\n\nAs regards immigration, they aren't totally against it. They simply want strict controls. As an immigrant you'll have to have a paying job, pay taxes and support your family through education and healthcare without any Government assistance for 5 years. After that 5 years, you can get assistance.\n\nRestrict the NHS to UK citizens and long term residents. This means refusing care to immigrants and tourists unless they purchase health insurance.\n\nRemove income tax on the lowest earners.\n\nRemove the inheritance tax.\n\nReduce corporation tax.\n\nAbolish a scaled tax system, and introduce a flat rate of tax at 31%\n\nAbolish national insurance.\n\nProvide retraining to all those out of work.\n\nScrap so-called 'green' taxes, which are taxes on industry etc based on their carbon emissions.\n\nScrap subsidies of renewable energy projects.\n\nInvest in fracking.\n\nTake a strong anti man-made climate change stance. This would include prohibiting schools from including it in their teachings, and prevent local authorities spending public money on climate-change related efforts.\n\nSignificantly reduce foreign aid.\n\nReduce or remove 'good behaviour' reductions on prison sentences, also substantially reduce opportunities for parole.\n\nRestructure the NHS somewhat, to change access provisions and local governance. Including locally elected hospital boards, with responsibility for inspecting and overseeing hospitals.\n\nFocus social housing assistance on those with local routes, letting folk reliably stay in the same area as parents and grandparents.\n\nCut roughly £77bn in the public sector to pay for tax cuts.\n\nIncrease NHS subsidies for dental and optical treatments.\n\nOpposes same sex marriage.\n\n40% increase in defence spending, including the purchase of 3 new aircraft carriers. \n\nAnd thats basic outline, there are obviously other policies. Let me know if you've any questions, I'll try and break it down further :)\n\n"
]
} | [] | [] | [
[]
] |
||
2yuofe | how is it that birds can imitate the english language very well with beaks, while mammals of similar physical facial structures as humans (dogs, monkeys, etc) cannot? | Seems like it'd be way easier for an ape to speak than a parrot | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/2yuofe/eli5_how_is_it_that_birds_can_imitate_the_english/ | {
"a_id": [
"cpd41xr",
"cpd4obm",
"cpda5qk",
"cpdg4e9",
"cpdgoxd",
"cpdhbz1",
"cpdj1m0",
"cpdj3wp",
"cpdjpln",
"cpdkhny",
"cpdltf3",
"cpdmowe",
"cpdns4b",
"cpdo1wy",
"cpdp1fq",
"cpdppgw",
"cpdrvhm",
"cpdzy2x"
],
"score": [
55,
1319,
35,
14,
17,
2,
5,
3,
6,
3,
3,
9,
4,
3,
3,
2,
2,
2
],
"text": [
"I too would like to know this answer. Also why can a parrot imitate a language with ease, but alot of people find it difficult?..... ",
"Basically, birds evolved to make lots of sounds and some birds evolved to mimic sounds. It has nothing to do with language or learning to speak. To see that, check out the lyre bird:\n\n_URL_1_\n\nWhen a parrot mimics speech, it does so because it has a well-developed syrinx and some tongue control that allows it to manipulate airflow and create a variety of sounds. They don't do it through vocal cords like we do; the fact that they mimic human speech is just a side-effect of their profound vocalization/mimic abilities. \n\nIn contrast, chimps and monkeys have very underdeveloped vocal tracts because they don't make very many sounds. See here for comparison (note the highlighted area):\n\n_URL_2_\n\nAnd a similar one for the dog: \n\n_URL_0_\n\nBecause they didn't evolve to vocalize much, except for a few grunts/barks, their vocal tracts are smaller, tongue movements less precise, and generally they are unable to manipulate airflow like we can. ",
"Dogs have facial structure similar to humans?",
"It's not the structures of our face. It's what's in our throats. Humans have very developed vocal cords compared to most other mammals. This is why we teach sign language to great apes instead of just teaching them a spoken language. Birds, on the other hand, are very strong vocal communicators, thus there are many birds that have the capacity to speak human languages.",
"I own a parrot. It's the tongue. They have crazy tongues!!!\n\nThey mostly do vowels anyways because they don't have lips. ",
"Well, some dogs can speak English. [Here's](_URL_0_) a video of a dog saying 'sausages' on 1970s UK television. It's not exactly at parrot-level English, but hey.",
"If orangutan's vocal chords are undeveloped, could it be possible to implant human chords in? I'm m no orangutan expert but they seem smart enough to understand language if they had the chance",
"To get to the short of it. Their voice boxes are in a different location. It's a weird anthropology thing. Our voice boxes are in a place that allows us to make all different types of sounds. This placement also makes it easier for us to choke on food or something else. Chimps on the other hand have voice boxes that are lower down and therefore can't make as many sounds but also it's harder for them to choke on something. So at some point in our evolution it became more important for us to talk to each other than to lower the risk of choking.",
"I entered here thinking the post would be about their ability to *specifically* emulate English language. Seeing as its not the case at all... What the hell. Wouldn't it have been more logical to jusk ask \"how comes birds can imitate our voice in a better way than mammals\"?",
"Consider speakers have no beaks at all yet they can reproduce with much higher fidelity. ",
"It may seem like birds have very different mouths than us, but when you consider that for most sounds we actually use the very back and top of our tongue rather than our lips, it's more understandable. This is why ventriloquists are a thing, for example. Birds have small flexible tongues and a lot of space to move them around in. Apes and dogs have big tongues and not very much space to move them around in. In fact, the human vocal box dropping (thus creating more room) is considered a possible impetus for the original development of spoken language.",
"My African grey parrot is about 6 years old.. He has learned to mimic Vietnamese phrases, the same noise when my grandpa coughs, he sounds like every bird that we have around here but the funniest thing is... He cant fly.\n\nI always let him out of the cage which is outside on the patio (or inside depending on season) and I tried to see if he would fly (don't ask why, curiosity got the best of me). Picked him up with my hand as usual and gave him a light toss. He glided for about 20-30 feet, losing altitude pretty quickly, freaked out and flew straight into the fence.\n\nIve never laughed so hard and didn't notice he walked back to me instead cause my eyes were blurry from all the tears ",
" > How is it that birds can imitate the english language\n\nHuman sounds, not just the English language.",
"Birds have alot more control control of their \"speech\" because their syrinx is designed to make a wide range of sounds. Other mammals, like chimps, have a higher larynx than us and dont have the same level of control over their breathing. They can only manage limited sounds, plus humans have a mutation that alllows speech formation in the brain.",
"Tell me more about how dogs faces are like humans...",
"What if someone were to surgically implant a well-developed voice box into an animal that doesn't speak as well as in comparison as humans?\nWould it be much too complicated, considering that the brain wouldn't be able to properly communicate with the new voice box?\n\nDisregard ethics and organ rejection, this is strictly hypothetical.",
"English language? My parrot speaks Spanish!",
"Your mom's facial structure is similar to dogs, monkeys, etc..."
]
} | [] | [] | [
[],
[
"http://www.merckmanuals.com/media/pet/figures/DDD_dog_nose_and_throat.gif",
"https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XjAcyTXRunY",
"http://pubpages.unh.edu/~jel/images/vocal_tract_chimp.gif"
],
[],
[],
[],
[
"https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ajsCY8SjJ1Y"
],
[],
[],
[],
[],
[],
[],
[],
[],
[],
[],
[],
[]
] |
|
31smdw | are solar roadways as effective as the video claims? why or why not? | I recently watched this video:
_URL_0_
It seems like a very promising technology, so why hasn't it been in production yet? What are the drawbacks to it? | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/31smdw/eli5_are_solar_roadways_as_effective_as_the_video/ | {
"a_id": [
"cq4l9lv",
"cq4lb0k"
],
"score": [
6,
11
],
"text": [
"No. Solar panels are hard to make cost efficient if you point them towards the sun and nothing is blocking them.\n\nNow imagine that you put them flat not the ground ei not pointed at the sun and then put glass that is gonna be scratched up and dirty over it. You are hardly gonna get any power at all from the panels.\n\nThen then you have the problem of cost, glass and electronics are way more expensive than black top, which is mostly gravel.\n\nAlso making a road out of tiles is a terrible idea. As the load is unevenly distributed the tiles will act like a seesaw every time you drive over it and will eventually crack or come lose. And can you imagine the danger if even one tile comes lose?\n\nThen you got the LED lights. It you take a look at all the pictures they released of the lights you will see that they are taken at night and taken from above. But when you are driving along you are looking at the road at a shallow angle and in the full light of day there is no way you would see the lights.\n\nFurthermore, they claim they can heat the tiles to melt ice. Which it simply a stupid idea. Melting snow and ice will take an insane amount of energy, far more than you could possibly get from the solar panels. There is a reason why we use snowplows to just move the snow to the side of the road instead of using flamethrower cars to melt the snow off the road.\n\nTo summarize, almost every claim solar roadways make has no grounding in reality. It's simply a scam playing on people good intentions for green energy. There are far better alternatives than solar roadways.",
"Absolutely not. It's a complete scam and full of nonsense.\n\nSolar panels are great, but they're expensive. Paving roads with them would be *super* expensive.\n\nSolar panels work great when they're at a low latitude, but less so when they're at a higher latitude. The video spends time talking about putting them in places to melt snow. This is an awful place to deploy solar panels. For that matter, simple conservation of energy shows that the best way to melt snow with sunlight is to just absorb that energy as heat. This makes asphalt already be one of the best surfaces there is.\n\nThey make nonsense claims about using recycled material, but for a solar panel you want the clearest glass possible, not some recycled glass that's cloudy or just straight-up brown. Also, asphalt is already one of the most recycled materials on the planet.\n\nSolar panels work best when they can track the sun. Roads work best when they *aren't* moving. There's a clear conflict here.\n\nSolar panels work best with direct sunlight, not shade. Cars provide shade. So does all the road grime coming off of them, for that matter.\n\nRoad surfaces need to be durable and provide good traction. The video hand-waves that away, but seriously, there's a reason we don't pave roads in glass. Yes, we're all impressed that you slowly drove a forklift on the roadway, but that doesn't show a damn thing. Show a stress test of 100,000 cars driving over it at highway speeds and we'll see how clear they are then. Show a semi emergency braking and see how much traction it provides. Especially try this while wet.\n\nOn top of all of this, solar panels are expensive and useful, so you'd have to deal with people stealing them.\n\nThere is absolutely no way in which a solar roadway is better than just paving the road in a traditional material like concrete or asphalt and then put your solar panels off to the side or as a cover for your parking. But that doesn't get a million dollars in backing on kickstarter because it doesn't sound cool enough.\n\nSeriously, fuck those guys. They are full of shit and should know better; for my money they probably do. "
]
} | [] | [
"https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=qlTA3rnpgzU"
] | [
[],
[]
] |
|
cyliiv | in war, how do enemy forces know that kills they’ve sustained at the hands of snipers (chris kyle, carlos hatchcock, etc.) know to attribute the work to one sniper? | For both Kyle and Hatchcock (and I’m sure others), the enemy forces have nicknames and put bounties on the heads of these snipers because they’ve recognized how deadly they are. How do they know that the kills they are attributing to these individual snipers aren’t actually the work of several snipers? | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/cyliiv/eli5_in_war_how_do_enemy_forces_know_that_kills/ | {
"a_id": [
"eyspj9u"
],
"score": [
6
],
"text": [
"Most of the time, it was the Sniper themselves claiming the kills, and nobody contradicting them. \nThe same thing with \"tank aces\". \nThere was often a good deal of propaganda surrounding it, they played up the threat of this lone hero, when it might actually be several people. \nYou should take these stories with a grain of salt."
]
} | [] | [] | [
[]
] |
|
4tlneb | startup funding. what are seed/angel/rounds of funding? | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/4tlneb/eli5_startup_funding_what_are_seedangelrounds_of/ | {
"a_id": [
"d5i8eu0",
"d5ie7sh",
"d5igbi8",
"d5ihhsm"
],
"score": [
16,
4,
2,
9
],
"text": [
"Seed and angel are pretty similar. Both will generally invest into an \"idea\" or concept. All you really need to get funding from them is a somewhat believable business plan. Angel investors usually tend to not take on an organizational role (won't bother with day to day operations). Both angel and seed investors generally get a large chunk of the business' profits.\n\nFunding rounds are just more money being put into the company after certain goals are achieved and sometimes it's based on a timeline (1/2 year or yearly funding). An example would be getting more funding for an app after X number of users because we will require more infrastructure to support that many users.\n\nVenture capital is generally provided to businesses that already have a customer base and just need funds to grow. VC is generally used for growth.",
"An angel investor differs from a VC in that they are basically just a single person with a lot of money and are looking to invest. \n\nA VC on the other hand is a larger organization that raises money from hundreds or thousands of other people and invests the money on their behalf. \n\nAngel rounds and seed rounds have no legal differentiation, however, Angel rounds are generally smaller because they consists of small donations from angels. \n\nIn a seed round, you might get a combination of VCs and angels or from just VCs.\n\nAgain, there's no legal basis so calling it a \"seed round\" or an \"angel round\" is mostly at the discretion of the company announcing the fundraising. \n\nAfter the seed round is usually the \"series A\" round then the \"series B\" round. This can go indefinitely sometimes until series \"G\" with certain companies that are capital intensive like medical companies or pharmaceuticals. Afterwards is the IPO or the initial public offering which is when the company gets listed on a stock exchange for the public to invest in like on the New York Stock Exchange. \n\n(Source, I'm the CEO of Color Dating, a funded SF startup)\n\n",
"Very large investment funds have a very large amount of money (think multi-national retirement funds). After these funds do the obvious, boring work of investing in stocks, bonds, ect... it make sense for them do set aside some money for high-risk, high-return investments. They hire specialists to manage those investments. Those specialists are called \"VCs\". VCs go around looking for companies that are set up to grow very quickly if only they had a large cash injection. The standard goal for VCs is to make > 10x their investment back for the fund in around 5 years. When they do this, the VCs themselves get a percentage cut of the fund's profit.\n\nThe way the investment works is usually, \"You company has been assessed (by an independent 3rd party) to be worth around $X today. I could hand you $Y today, and we'll agree that I own Y/(X+Y) of the company afterwards and can sell my share if I want to.\" In other words, the VC adds cash value into the company, the VC then owns the percentage of the company that was added by the cash. The startup then tries to use that cash to grow the company. Hopefully, the value of the company grows to be much larger than it would have without the cash injection. Often it doesn't and the company's value fizzles away. It is expected and planned that most VC investments won't work out, but the ones that do will more than cover for the duds.\n\nAngel investors are like VCs, but they are using their own money instead of some fund's money. Seed funding is just very early, very small funding. Like, if a rich friend put in $10K to help you get started. You might agree that you had $100K of value in the company before, so now he owns 9% of a $110K company after.",
"I suffer for a living working for startups. I can answer these with an inside perspective. \n\nStartups are all about growth, and like any venture, money helps companies scale. \n\n**Angel investors** are individual people who are accredited investors per SEC guidelines to exchange cash for chucks of a privately held company, divided up into slices of \"equity.\" Equity is shares, and it's \"sold\" in percentages, e.g. \"I will seed your venture with $100,000 of my own money in exchange for 10% of your company.\"\n\nEarly angel investors get larger chunks of equity because the startup is small and hasn't had it's first valuation. You'll see later how much more it costs for smaller and smaller slices once a startup scales. \n\nFor a long time, only accredited investors (IIRC network threshold was 250k or 100k net income) could exchange cash for equity. [Now the guidelines are lifted thanks to the JOBS Act.](_URL_0_) \n\n**Angel investing** is a type of **seed funding**, but seeds can come from syndicates made up of multiple people. Generally syndicates are formed by multiple entrepreneurs who aren't SEC accredited but want to seed startups. Angel investors and syndicates will want to sit on your board and oversee how their money is being spent. \n\n**Series funding** is a different beast and is the first \"big boy\" step for startups. Series funding follows a linear alphabet, but only the first two letters have concrete definitions. \n\nLet's go on a funding trip:\n\n**Seed funding** means you have an idea but you don't have the capital to hire a CTO or another developer. You pitch to angel investors and syndicates in the hopes someone will believe in your dream. You can raise all the seeds you want to, but remember angel investors will want to sit on your board, so be careful who you pitch. \n\n**Series A** means the product you built has early potential, but you need more capital to build a company to support your venture. For example, your product can't move without marketing, and you need to hire a SEM manager and a front end dev who optimizes for SEO, or it's time to headhunt a killer sales manager and build a sales team out. \n\nAt this point between A and B, a venture can simply become cash flow positive and/or might not need to scale just yet. Actually, Series A is the terminal point for fund raising for a lot of companies. Sometimes they are bought out. Sometimes the CEO is content with the company's position and just wants to run something small until the board wants to hire a new CEO to grow it. \n\n**Series B** means the product and company is doing well, but you need to scale in order to grab a larger market share. You have a team of 20, but you can't launch in another market without building another branch. \n\nWho leads each Series funding round is equally as important as how much you raise. Andreessen Horowitz is a very prestigious VC firm, for example. \n\n**Series C through F,G,H...** is simply a need for more cash to keep growing. Ventures like FanDuel and DraftKings are sitting at Series F last I saw. \n\nGenerally, very very very large funders and Venture Capital firms will see a move to C as a signal that the venture is moving fast and a \"fear of missing out\" pushes them to lead the next fund raising round.\n\n**IPOs** are the terminal fund raising round. Initial Public Offerings are used when a company really needs to grow and turns to the general public for fundraising. Here, equity is diluted so millions of shares can be sold. IPOs make the founders very wealthy, but to employee number 20, .15% ownership in a company at IPO means his shares went from 1,500 of 1,000,000 of shares of a company worth $10B to 1,500 of 50,000,000 at $50 a share. After the 180 day lockup, he's walking away with 75k (or whatever the market price is). \n\nMoney wise, it's better to be bought out than to go public for non-C level or non-founders. \n\nCareer wise, it's better to go public. Criteria for moving up to C-level means being with a company that went public, believe it or not. Competition is crazy, and surviving an IPO gives a candidate a HUGE edge over other candidates. \n\nHope this answered it all!"
]
} | [] | [] | [
[],
[],
[],
[
"https://www.entrepreneur.com/article/252322"
]
] |
||
3ligj9 | why do world-renowned actors/actresses, who have almost no risk of ever being in financial trouble, sometimes do terrible movies? | Redbox. Redbox constantly has five or six terrible movies that have household names in the lead roles. Please explain. | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/3ligj9/eli5_why_do_worldrenowned_actorsactresses_who/ | {
"a_id": [
"cv6kwe8",
"cv6lgsq",
"cv6mft1"
],
"score": [
4,
3,
2
],
"text": [
"Because they can make a fat pile of cash for almost no work. In a lot of those terrible movies the big actors only need to show up for like 2 days, shoot all their scenes, and then cash the check.",
"There are a few things at play here.\n\n1, They could read a script that is awesome and sign a contract for the movie, then the director and/or editor can fuck the entire thing up - it'll look vastly different from what the script made you think of to the finished result.\n\n2, They have their agent/agency pick the movies for them based on \"what's best for them\" and end up in some shitpile movie unexpectedly.\n\n3, They could be like Nic Cage and not handle money (or have money managers screw them over) and NEED to take on the role to settle some debts - or real debts. A 10000 sqf house in Holmby Hills isn't cheap and if they didn't make any good movies the prior year they might run dry... plus publicists, agents, assistants, luxury cars, travel and stuff...\n\nIt can also be movies that were made before they were famous and suddenly they have a giant blockbuster and the owners of the earlier films re-release them to cash in on the (now) famous name.\n\n",
"It seems that was because that is part Redbox's (and Netflix and Hulu's) business model.\n\nThe more popular a movie is, them more expensive it is for them to license. So the trick is to find bad movies they can get for cheap, but have people in it who are famous enough people will see the movie because of them. Some actors make a lot of movies, and many are forgettable. But if Redbox waves *Love Potion #9* in your face, and you say to yourself, hey, that Sandra Bullock is pretty good, you might rent it.\n\n"
]
} | [] | [] | [
[],
[],
[]
] |
|
mp5t0 | the categorical imperative | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/mp5t0/eli5_the_categorical_imperative/ | {
"a_id": [
"c32pmlu",
"c32ps3j",
"c32pmlu",
"c32ps3j"
],
"score": [
2,
2,
2,
2
],
"text": [
"Short version: Only act in a certain way if you can in good conscience say that people should always act in that way.\n\ne.g. you should not murder because if everyone went around murdering people, society would collapse.",
"Act as though your every action creates a universal rule requiring everyone else to act in the same way under the same circumstances.",
"Short version: Only act in a certain way if you can in good conscience say that people should always act in that way.\n\ne.g. you should not murder because if everyone went around murdering people, society would collapse.",
"Act as though your every action creates a universal rule requiring everyone else to act in the same way under the same circumstances."
]
} | [] | [] | [
[],
[],
[],
[]
] |
||
1ppl5d | how did the birthday song's melody become the global birthday tune? even in different languages, the melody is the same. | I know it's the same for English, Spanish, Portuguese and Italian.. Even though the lyrics are very different. | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/1ppl5d/eli5_how_did_the_birthday_songs_melody_become_the/ | {
"a_id": [
"cd4tmcv",
"cd4tp9u",
"cd4uiuz",
"cd4z17x"
],
"score": [
16,
2,
3,
2
],
"text": [
"Started in America, translated into 18 languages, catchy as heck and that's likely why it was accepted into several cultures' traditions.\n\nwarner owns the rights, public performance could be subject to royalties. mobile, sorry: \n\n_URL_0_",
"For starters, the original lyrics were *not* \"Happy Birthday to You...\" etc. The melody is [from 1893](_URL_0_). Unfortunately, the Wikipedia article is focused primarily on the copyright status, and the melody, being older, is clearly not copyrighted, while the lyrics might be (depending on who you ask, but IMHO it's highly unlikely since they published before 1923, which is the cutoff date for modern copyrights, but IANAL). That means most of the discussion is about the lyrics and not the melody. \n\nPerhaps the public domain status of the melody made it particularly easy to use in other countries. Replacing the lyrics would weaken any claim of copyright infringement (though using a straightforward translation could still expose one to liability). Ultimately, this most likely stems from Americanization, wherein other countries' cultures become more like that of the USA. Happy Birthday is a traditional American birthday song, and restaurants in other countries may be able to get away with non-English performances of it.\n\nOf course, this is pure speculation. If someone with greater knowledge of the field (or actual sources) wants to contradict me, please feel free.",
"It's not.\n\nMuch like a lot of other areas in US culture, it's been adapted to a lot of palces, but it's far from *the* global birthday song. Every culture I'm aware of still has a traditional birthday song of their own, they just also happen to know the American one, too.\n\nFor example, the traditional Mexican birthday song is [Las Mañanitas](_URL_0_), and is often (at least in the US) sung immediately before the [Spanish-translated version](_URL_1_) of Happy Birthday.",
"I would imagine it's become popular globally for two reasons:\n\n* It's not musically complex. \n\n* The lyrics have a sum total of five distinct words and a name in them. Not hard to translate into any language."
]
} | [] | [] | [
[
"http://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Happy_Birthday_To_You"
],
[
"http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Happy_Birthday_to_You"
],
[
"http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BL_cDdLwV9c",
"http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kaonnn7yCkQ"
],
[]
] |
|
21c0l5 | why am i always reading about schools in america sanctioning students for weird reasons? | Recent examples:
_URL_1_
_URL_3_
_URL_0_
_URL_2_
My immediate suspicion is that the media is not telling the whole story and sensationalizing some aspect of it. But what's the deal? Why get suspended for shaving your head.
edit:format | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/21c0l5/eli5why_am_i_always_reading_about_schools_in/ | {
"a_id": [
"cgbkpqp",
"cgbl36c",
"cgbqou2"
],
"score": [
4,
2,
2
],
"text": [
"1) We have a hungry population waiting to rage over pretty much anything.\n\n2) Our various media outlets know this, and are just waiting to pounce on any story they can present or even blow out of proportion to get ratings for people.\n\n3) We have over 300 million people. With how many of them are students, it's not hard to find a few cases of odd disciplinary actions.\n\n4) We're a large country with diverse religiously or politically driven social climates. There are plenty of places where these disciplinary actions could fly, while seeming odd or unacceptable at the national or international level.",
"I think it partly involves the personality type that goes into the field of school administration. A lot of uninspired minds who get genuine satisfaction from enforcing technical points of rules and don't grasp the big picture, who would fail utterly in the business world. ",
"Because school policies are often decided by [concerned parents] (_URL_0_) who have little or no conception of a mindset beyond their own reasoning, biases and prejudices. \n\nThey think that if the children of a school don't conform to their own stylistic preferences, it will somehow \"disrupt\" the education process. "
]
} | [] | [
"http://www.clickorlando.com/news/africanamerican-girl-faces-expulsion-over-natural-hair/-/1637132/23160118/-/ajcxtsz/-/index.html",
"http://www.foxnews.com/us/2014/03/25/girl-barred-from-school-for-shaving-her-head-to-support-friend-with-cancer/",
"http://www.foxnews.com/us/2014/03/18/high-school-senior-jailed-kicked-out-school-and-may-lose-army-dream-because/?intcmp=latestnews",
"http://abclocal.go.com/wls/story?section=news/national_world&id=9445255"
] | [
[],
[],
[
"https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Qh2sWSVRrmo"
]
] |
|
967dlj | do different types of radiation have different temperatures? | [deleted] | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/967dlj/eli5_do_different_types_of_radiation_have/ | {
"a_id": [
"e3y90l3"
],
"score": [
6
],
"text": [
"Temperature is a property of matter. Radiation doesn't have a temperature, however it has an energy (per photon) which can result in a temperature increase when a photon interact with matter.\n\n[edit] [This chart](_URL_0_) gives the energy range for different type of radiations.\n\n[edit2] Radiation can be emitted (via a process called black body radiation) by matter. Which wavelength is emitted depends only on the temperature of the emitting matter. Is this what your are thinking about?"
]
} | [] | [] | [
[
"https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/3/30/EM_spectrumrevised.png/1920px-EM_spectrumrevised.png"
]
] |
|
4ewk6q | why in trains most people hate sitting on a back facing seat? | [deleted] | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/4ewk6q/eli5_why_in_trains_most_people_hate_sitting_on_a/ | {
"a_id": [
"d23xaa6",
"d23xunn"
],
"score": [
6,
2
],
"text": [
"Some people get motion sickness when they aren't facing the direction of travel. It's not even close to \"most\" people. \"Most people\" don't suffer motion sickness at all. ",
"Slightly off topic but I know back in the 80's they were talking of reversing the seats on aircraft as there was evidence your chance of survival was greater facing away from the impact. So maybe anyone bitching about having to sit in that position on a chair you can inform would probably better survive in a crash.\n\nWell it might shut them up....."
]
} | [] | [] | [
[],
[]
] |
|
2imefp | how does cheat detection in games work? | Things like VAC and punkbuster etc. how do they work?
I swear I'm not a cheater guys | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/2imefp/eli5_how_does_cheat_detection_in_games_work/ | {
"a_id": [
"cl3fbpk"
],
"score": [
5
],
"text": [
"at the easiest level, you take the executable binary files that the game is running. take the bits in the program and run them thru a math function called a checksum. the checksum produces a number. this number will change if any of the bits changes. the publisher knows what the unmodified binary's checksum number is. if your executable is anything but the original checksum, you're not allowed to pass.\n\nother ways check the data that's in memory. if the original program didn't modify the data and the data's changed from the last time, something's messing with the data."
]
} | [] | [] | [
[]
] |
|
4gfq4p | why did most countries keep the roman alphabet but switch from roman numerals? | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/4gfq4p/eli5_why_did_most_countries_keep_the_roman/ | {
"a_id": [
"d2h4tqk",
"d2h4vux"
],
"score": [
2,
2
],
"text": [
"I don't know about the first part but the practice side of why we don't use Roman numerals is because writing large numbers is not efficient with them, also it is very easy to misinterpret what they say. Most people won't confuse 6 and 7 but more will confuse VI and VII. ",
"Mostly because doing maths with Roman numerals is harder, not being a positional notation.\n\nIIRC Charles Seife's [excellent book on zero](_URL_0_) covers it quite well."
]
} | [] | [] | [
[],
[
"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Zero%3A_The_Biography_of_a_Dangerous_Idea?wprov=sfla1"
]
] |
||
5z21lc | how is film made for cameras? | I have always wondered how it was created to be light sensitive and how they make different types of films that give different looks. | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/5z21lc/eli5_how_is_film_made_for_cameras/ | {
"a_id": [
"dev0q7b"
],
"score": [
2
],
"text": [
"Photo sensitive papers and films are made using a form of silver. The silver halides have a very low activation threshold, and the zap of a photon is enough to knock pieces off the halide, changing it's chemical structure. \n\nThe film is made by using a substrate which is anything you use to hold the image. It could be plastic, paper, cellulose, etc. The base substrate is embedded with the silver halides and these impregnate the film or paper. It is then dried and packaged in light proof containers. \n\n\nThe image is developed using a developer compound like D76, which is a powder dissolved into water to form a liquid developer. It darkens or tarnishes the exposed silver particles. \n\nThe reaction will keep going until a chemical neutralizer called stopbath is used. Stopbath reacts with the developer and neutralizes it so it stops developing. Without it, an image would continue to get darker and darker over time as the developer continued to work long after it was in a darkroom. \n\nFinally the film or paper is run through a chemical called a fixer. It renders the rest of the silver halides inert and they will no longer react with light. At this point you can flip the lights on because you have a permanent photograph or negative, once you wash it off. \n\nA fun fact, the silver collected in the film and paper ends up saturating the fixer tray. It is possible to recover the silver from the liquid by chemically treating it and then refining. It doesn't amount to much but it's still pretty cool. \n\n\n"
]
} | [] | [] | [
[]
] |
|
2rt2w1 | what are green olives stuffed with and why do they do it? | Also how do they stuff them? In a factory? Hand-stuffed by elves? | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/2rt2w1/eli5_what_are_green_olives_stuffed_with_and_why/ | {
"a_id": [
"cnizuzh",
"cnizvcg",
"cnj0c9u"
],
"score": [
3,
2,
2
],
"text": [
"They're traditionally stuffed with pimiento, a sweet red pepper. I've seen them stuffed with all kinds of things, though - jalpeno, bleu cheese, almonds, garlic....",
"[Here](Stuffed Olives: _URL_0_) is a 'How Its Made' on the subject that explains it very well.",
"Taking the pit out of the olive leaves a big hole. They put in a piece of pimento, a chili pepper. It's all done with machines...run by elves."
]
} | [] | [] | [
[],
[
"http://youtu.be/MdCqelSoCqQ"
],
[]
] |
|
1amb97 | what the point of pantone colors is. | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/1amb97/eli5_what_the_point_of_pantone_colors_is/ | {
"a_id": [
"c8ypwql",
"c8yqk47"
],
"score": [
3,
3
],
"text": [
"You can do a lot with the four basic colours (Cyan, Magenta, Yellow, Black), but not all. Mixing of them is not perfect and you simply cannot recreate a certain, very specific shade. You need to go beyond paints and mix specific pigments (stuff that makes colour in paint) and there are 15 of them. Pantone also contains metallic and fluorescent colours, which also cannot be recreated by CMYK. \n\nIt's quite important if you want a consistent symbol (like company logo, or a flag and whatnot) to be printed all over the world exactly the same. Most home printers would still convert it to CMYK, but in offset printing (the way to print a lot of stuff) it's quite common.\n\nEDIT: Also, instead of printing 4 colours on one sheet of paper and making 4 plates/stencils and counting that each colour gets printed on exactly the same spot, you only need one. ",
"So, to answer this question I'm going to need a [picture](_URL_0_). \n\n* The outer circle represents all the colours that are visible to the human eye. \n* The large yellow border represents all the colours that can be shown on a computer monitor by mixing red, green and blue light (RGB). This represents a huge chunk, but by no means all visible colours.\n* The small blue border represents the colours in print media, books, magazines, etc. (CMYK). This is just a small subset of all the visible colours and is a lot smaller than RGB. However, all these colours can be made by mixing four basic inks, which makes for cheap production.\n* The brown border represents the colours in the Pantone system. There are far more colours here than you can get from the simpler four-colour process, but still far fewer than RGB and ultimately only a small subset of the visible colours is available. \n\nYou can get a much wider range of colours by using Pantone, but this comes at a cost - one ink is required per colour. Four CMYK inks can reproduce a full colour photograph to an acceptable standard. However, if you want your company logo to really stand out on the page, maybe Pantone is the way to go."
]
} | [] | [] | [
[],
[
"http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-GlRUExzCWos/T7_vxHtZ4qI/AAAAAAAAAFU/4z2-VUetVSc/s1600/gamut.jpg"
]
] |
||
2a5zx4 | if we ignore the budget and just constantly create debt, why does the government even bother collecting taxes(usa)? | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/2a5zx4/eli5_if_we_ignore_the_budget_and_just_constantly/ | {
"a_id": [
"cirt44m"
],
"score": [
2
],
"text": [
"Because we have to pay interest on the debt and nobody is going to lend money to a country that has zero income."
]
} | [] | [] | [
[]
] |
||
bgh72l | what is an easy way to explain the basic concept of music theory ? | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/bgh72l/eli5_what_is_an_easy_way_to_explain_the_basic/ | {
"a_id": [
"elkwalg",
"elkwmsc"
],
"score": [
3,
18
],
"text": [
"Start playing a couple of bars on a piano then hit a wrong note. Nothing familiar, but it sounded nice until you hit that wrong note. \n\nYou didn't know the song, so as far as you know it was exactly as the composer intended, but you just *know* it was wrong. \n\nMusic theory is the theory that every note/chord has an ideal next note/chord. With enough AI, we could program the \"perfect\" ending to song. \n\nWe've worked out certain riffs that tie onto other riffs and transition into others, but the rules are always changing, and there are always exceptions. \n\nThink [Ice Ice Baby](_URL_0_) vs [Under Pressure](_URL_1_). Both are \"good\" songs, despite starting the same way.",
"When two different pitches are played at the same time, that's called harmony. Harmonies can be consonant or dissonant.\n\nWhen we look at the mathematical frequencies of the two notes, they make a ratio. If the ratio is nice and easy, like 1/2 or 2/3 or even 3/5, they match up and sound nice. We call that consonance. If the ratio is weird like 9/17 or something, they don't match up very well and sound like they are clashing. We call that dissonance.\n\nGenerally speaking, people like to hear consonance more than dissonance. But sometimes musicians will deliberately use dissonance (as long as it isn't too bad) that resolves to consonance because it makes tension and then release.\n\nIt's like how in a movie where the evil guy bad is about to kill the hero but then the hero defeats him at the last minute. If the whole movie were just rainbows and lollipops there's no tension, no conflict. It would be boring. In the same way, musicians will tend move from consonance and dissonance and back again and all around, which makes an interesting piece of harmony.\n\nOf course consonance and dissonance are not a black and white thing. There are different varieties and flavors of them. In the same way that an artist will mix reds and blues to make a new shade of purple, a musician can combine notes and harmonies in different ways to make an interesting piece of music."
]
} | [] | [] | [
[
"https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rog8ou-ZepE",
"https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YoDh_gHDvkk"
],
[]
] |
||
1v0xa3 | why do we give prisoners razors to shave if they always use them to make shanks? | Just watching America's toughest prisons and thought they had far too many utensils given to them that could be used for shanks. Is there anyway to just not give prisoners sharp objects? And if yes, is it a futile exercise as they probably will find other ways of making shanks? Ty. | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/1v0xa3/why_do_we_give_prisoners_razors_to_shave_if_they/ | {
"a_id": [
"cenma42",
"cenmp5q",
"cenms1j",
"cenmvxa",
"cenni5u",
"cenoaly",
"cense1l"
],
"score": [
4,
2,
6,
3,
5,
3,
3
],
"text": [
"You can make a shank out of almost anything. Just gotta find something that's hard but can be given a sharp edge or a point. You can melt things, break things, whittle things, scrape things, etc. ",
"Prisoners have barbars",
"It's true as listed before; prisoners can make shanks out of nearly anything. I watched a prison documentary where a prisoner described how he fashioned a national geographic magazine into a functioning weapon. Prisoners are only given razors when they show that they can be trusted with them, and won't hurt themselves or others. High security inmates are forbidden from having anything easily made into a weapon, and are shaved by someone else every few days.",
"I'm just gonna leave this here: \n\n_URL_0_",
"From my experience in county jail, razors aren't something inmates get to keep. They are issued once a week, you have to sign for yours, and a couple hours later you turn it in and get your name checked off. The guards inspect the razor for damages (missing blades), and if anything is amiss there are consequences.\n\nToothbrushes are much easier to make shanks out of, anyway.",
"I vote they wax. ",
"For most general population inmates, the razors are accounted for and controlled. Inmates are allowed a certain number of razor blades and must have exactly that number in their cell. When the cells are inspected, as they are frequently, if an inmate is missing a blade, the inmate may go from general population down to max custody. \n\nIf an inmate has to dispose of a blade, he can't just throw it in the trash. He has to turn it into a guard who will dispose of the blade."
]
} | [] | [] | [
[],
[],
[],
[
"http://www.cracked.com/quick-fixes/9-regular-objects-turned-into-insane-prison-weapons/"
],
[],
[],
[]
] |
|
2fz2x6 | how accurate is the "hollywood" version of being shot? | A while back, for a story I was working on, I did a lot of research into gunshot wounds, but it's still difficult to me to picture the forces behind these injuries. One thing that bugs me is how movies portray being shot.
In action movies, it seems like whenever a character is shot, one of three things will happen: They will walk it off, completely unharmed, they will instantly drop dead, or they will collapse on the ground and slowly pass out with just enough time to deliver some poignant/awesome dying words.
From what I've learned, it's possible to die instantly from a gunshot wound, generic bad-guy style, but most GSWs are treatable and survivable. That doesn't mean you should be able to shrug off bullets like an action hero, but you're also not likely to instantly die.
What I'm wondering is, what about that step in between? When shot in a critical part of the body, but not enough to cause instant death, like the brain or the heart, do we really get the poignant "DON'T YOU DIE ON ME" scene we see in the movies, where a dying character has 30 seconds of lucidity to deliver his last words before peacefully falling asleep?
I guess what I'm asking is, in that situation,
1: What is the person dying of? Are they bleeding to death? Are they dying of shock? Suffocation?
(1a: The concept of dying of shock always seemed odd to me. What's killing the person there?)
2: Will they really remain both conscious and lucid, and for how long? Could they really stay that calm, or would the pain be too much?
3: Where would a person have to be shot for this to happen?
Weird questions, I know, and morbid ones too, but I'm honestly curious. | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/2fz2x6/eli5_how_accurate_is_the_hollywood_version_of/ | {
"a_id": [
"cke6tpb"
],
"score": [
6
],
"text": [
"EMT/medical nut here. \n\nWhen you get shot, there are a bunch of competing forces happening at once, one or more of which could kill you. Of course, blood loss is a real problem if the bullet hits anything important, but the body can actually handle quite a bit of blood loss before dropping into an unrecoverable spiral. Even then a paramedic should be able to give you some IV fluids to stave off shock. Since you asked, shock is a medical term referring to \"inadequate perfusion\", which is Science for \"you don't have enough oxygen getting to your cells, so everything is freaking out and dying.\" Really low blood pressure (caused by not having enough blood) is the major cause of this in gunshot victims, though it can also be caused by brain damage making your blood vessels freak out and open all the way. This \"Neurogenic\" shock is basically always lethal in the field.\n\nIf the bullet didn't hit an artery and you get any kind of first aid (including stopping the bleeding yourself), blood loss isn't what's going to kill you. If you survive the first 10 minutes of being shot and there is no internal bleeding, you will probably survive to a hospital. There, it depends where you were shot, and how serious the injury is. If you got shot in the muscle of your leg or arm, it's possible the doctors can just remove the bullet and then sew you up. The muscle will eventually heal on its own, and nothing in your extremities will be life-threatening. This is why bullet-proof vests don't cover the arms.\n\nIf, however, the bullet went into your main body, you have a bigger problem. Bullets are moving really fast (duh). All that energy has to go somewhere, and if a bullet hits you in the chest, the energy is going into ripping you apart in various ways. The obvious one is the bullet hole. If the bullet missed your ribs, it will definitely be going fast enough to punch holes in your internal organs. Organs don't like this very much, and this will cause internal bleeding, which can kill you really fast. A good trauma surgeon can fix most bullet holes in time to save you, assuming the other problems don't get you. \n\nInfection is one of those problems. Opening up the chest cavity in a non-sterile area is a huge no-no in surgery, and bullets have the annoying habit of doing just that. Any old germ which might be harmless on the outside of the body might completely wreck you once it gets inside, especially once you consider that your immune system is going to be down following the massive system trauma. \n\nThe third major problem is known as cavitation. This one is a little more complicated to explain, but basically it's the damage caused by all the bullet's energy that DIDN'T go to ripping you new orifices. When the bullet hits, it creates a shockwave through the surrounding tissue that travels faster than the speed of sound in some cases. This shreds small blood vessels, destroys individual cells all over the area, causes nerve damage, and can collapse intricate systems inside your organs you need to survive. There isn't really a way to treat this at this time, and the amount and types of damage done vary basically at random.\n\nIf you get hit in a lung, this opens up a whole new can of worms. If you start bleeding into a lung, the lung will stop working (duh) and you will quickly be unable to breathe. Sometimes, air can get into the bullet wound and collapse one or both lungs. This is called a pneumothorax, and can be treated in the field by a paramedic by jabbing you with a wide-bore needle. However, collapsing the lungs does permanent damage to them, and it might cause permanent breathing problems. If you get shot in the gut, partially-digested food and bacteria from the colon spill into the body cavity, which will almost always end in a horrific infection, and possibly death. Getting hit in the kidneys or liver will cause massive blood loss, and if your pancreas somehow gets hit despite being behind literally everything else, you could get Type I Diabetes.\n\nTl;DR: DON'T GET SHOT."
]
} | [] | [] | [
[]
] |
|
1ioqen | how do you real estate agents get profit if the person buying it will be on a mortgage? | Asked my eco teacher, still didn't help much. | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/1ioqen/eli5how_do_you_real_estate_agents_get_profit_if/ | {
"a_id": [
"cb6jpt6",
"cb6jrtn",
"cb6jrus"
],
"score": [
3,
3,
2
],
"text": [
"Because a bank loans the buyers money. They give that money to the agent, who will give it to the seller (minus their fee). The buyer then pays the bank back the money borrowed, and interest. ",
"A mortgage is just a long-term loan.\n\nThe house seller contacts a real-estate agent to sell his/her house. The real-estate agent takes a fee for selling the house, let's say it's 1%.\n\nThe seller of the house wants a $100 for the house. This means that the real-estate agent will set their fee at 1$, making the total-cost for the buyer 101$. So the seller gets $100, and the real estate agent gets 1$.\n\nThe buyer contacts a bank and takes out 101$, give 1$ to the real estate agent and 100$ to the seller of the house.",
"The bank pays the seller the full price of the property. The realtor takes their percentage cut. The buyer pays off the loan over several years or decades."
]
} | [] | [] | [
[],
[],
[]
] |
|
2s3xiy | if law enforcement aren't allowed to enter our homes without a warrant, why are they allowed in our yards? | I'm just curious. Are there different laws for land than there are for structures on the land? And if so, why? I started wondering after hearing about a man's dog being shot and killed by police (while he wasn't even home) after they jumped his fence while looking for a suspect. Thank you in advanced! | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/2s3xiy/eli5_if_law_enforcement_arent_allowed_to_enter/ | {
"a_id": [
"cnlyf7z",
"cnlz58f"
],
"score": [
11,
3
],
"text": [
" > after they jumped his fence while looking for a suspect\n\nThis is a key piece of information. If they had a reasonable suspicion that a suspect had entered your home, they could enter it without a warrant, too.\n\nThere are four instances where the police can search private property without a warrant:\n\n1. **Consent**: The property owner agrees to let them enter. \n2. **Plain View**: If the police see something illegal in plain view from a location where they already have a right to be, they can enter and search your home without a warrant. \n3. **Search Incident to Arrest**: If you're being arrested in your home, they can also search your home for weapons/people who might post a danger to them, and to prevent the destruction of evidence. \n4. **Exigent Circumstances**: This the the exclusion that is relevant to your story. If police are in hot pursuit of a suspect, and that suspect enters your property, they can enter your property (including your home) without a warrant in order to search for or apprehend the suspect.",
"They can enter you home or other property (warehouse, car, boat, trailer, etc) while in pursuit of a criminal if they have reasonable suspicion to believe that he's in there or passed through there."
]
} | [] | [] | [
[],
[]
] |
|
3s2vv3 | equations and inequalities with absolute value. | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/3s2vv3/eli5_equations_and_inequalities_with_absolute/ | {
"a_id": [
"cwtm9ss"
],
"score": [
2
],
"text": [
"What exactly about them do you not understand?"
]
} | [] | [] | [
[]
] |
||
2r67no | why do i absolutely hate things that become popular, things which i may have once liked, for seemingly no reason? | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/2r67no/eli5_why_do_i_absolutely_hate_things_that_become/ | {
"a_id": [
"cncvnen"
],
"score": [
2
],
"text": [
"Often things that are popular only get discussed in a positive light and any flaws with it tend to be overlooked by the masses in general. This can lead to the dissenter to focus on the negatives to justify their viewpoint to themselves and others making the thing in question seem worse than it is. \n\nAlternatively mass popularity tends to lead to over saturation of something to the point where you just instinctively get tired of it regardless of whether you like it or not.\n\nThe best way to overcome this is to simply watch it yourself and make your own judgments outside your own bias and the bias others try to force on you. Remember that very few things live up to hype and not everyone is going to have the same taste.\n\nIf you don't like something either simply avoid it or use non-hostile language when discussing it. \"It wasn't for me\" gets a lot less of an angry reaction from people than insulting them by claiming something they like is stupid."
]
} | [] | [] | [
[]
] |
||
2jh8lf | how do you start a fire by blowing on it? shouldn't that put it out? | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/2jh8lf/eli5_how_do_you_start_a_fire_by_blowing_on_it/ | {
"a_id": [
"clbpvpq"
],
"score": [
4
],
"text": [
"Blowing on a fire, or more usually the embers to start it brings the oxygen that fire can use as fuel closer to it, which allows it to grow and burn more.\n\nThis does only work to a certain degree though, if you blow too much air, or too hard at the fire, it'll blow it out if the fire's small enough; like when you blow out a candle."
]
} | [] | [] | [
[]
] |
||
19ow0n | why do the hours of daylight in a year not correspond strictly to latitude? | Is it because of topography? | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/19ow0n/why_do_the_hours_of_daylight_in_a_year_not/ | {
"a_id": [
"c8pzcf0",
"c8pzngy"
],
"score": [
2,
2
],
"text": [
"An [image ](_URL_0_) detailing number of daylight hours in North America and Europe.\n",
"[Technically, it does](_URL_0_). But yes, topography does make a difference as well. However, these maps are measured with a device that measures sunshine (called a [Campbell-Stokes sunshine recorder](_URL_1_)). However, this is impacted by factors like cloud cover. As a result, places that experience clouds would have more sunlight. Depending on the location, seasons may also have an impact for the same reason.\n\n[This Australian map may also be of interest](_URL_2_)."
]
} | [] | [] | [
[
"http://imgur.com/tPueXaT"
],
[
"http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Day_length",
"http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Campbell-Stokes_sunshine_recorder",
"http://www.bom.gov.au/jsp/ncc/climate_averages/sunshine-hours/index.jsp"
]
] |
|
1q6s7e | elim: why oil prices went up in 2000 even though opec's supply remained relatively high | So I was reading the OPEC wiki page (_URL_0_) and it states that "In the 2000s, a combination of factors pushed up oil prices even as supply remained high." What were those factors and why do oil prices stray from a standard Supply/Demand model? | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/1q6s7e/elim_why_oil_prices_went_up_in_2000_even_though/ | {
"a_id": [
"cd9rwda"
],
"score": [
3
],
"text": [
"Demand increased dramatically, basically. China and India saw huge increases in the number of people driving. China, for instance, had 20 cars per 1,000 people in 2004. By 2009, that was 47 cars per 1,000 people -- more than double the 2004 number in just 5 years. [Source](_URL_0_). That means a huge spike in demand for gas. So even while supply remained high (largely stagnant, but high) demand vastly increased. Thus, oil prices didn't stray from the supply/demand model; demand increased, driving up prices.\n\nThere's a lot of other stuff, particularly dealing with the change in the value of the dollar caused by the economic collapse of 2008-09, but the reason prices have remained so high is just increased demand."
]
} | [] | [
"http://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/OPEC"
] | [
[
"http://data.worldbank.org/indicator/IS.VEH.NVEH.P3"
]
] |
|
3nxx3d | what happens if all ten non permanent members of the un security council vote against a resolution but all five permanent members vote for? | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/3nxx3d/eli5_what_happens_if_all_ten_non_permanent/ | {
"a_id": [
"cvs8tpd",
"cvs9ccw"
],
"score": [
5,
2
],
"text": [
"In order to pass, a resolution most fulfill both of the following:\n\n- All 5 permanent members must vote for it.\n\n- A majority of all security council members must vote for it.\n\nThe resolution would not pass. The UN's system is designed to favor inaction as a means of keeping belligerents at the table.",
"The resolution fails. Any resolution needs majority support, but no resolution can pass with a \"no\" vote of any of the permanent members."
]
} | [] | [] | [
[],
[]
] |
||
4p2vch | why do objects in our vision appear to be in different places when we look through one eye closed one eye open. | For example if your looking at an object and you close your left eye but keep your right one open and then do the same with your left eye. The object seems to have changed positions. | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/4p2vch/eli5_why_do_objects_in_our_vision_appear_to_be_in/ | {
"a_id": [
"d4hmfxy",
"d4hnl7x"
],
"score": [
6,
2
],
"text": [
"Because your eyes aren't in exactly the same place as one another. They're a few inches apart..You are literally seeing the object from two different angles. Your brain combines the images into one when you have both eyes open so you don't really notice.",
"You have a dominate and non dominant eye; if you're right eye dominant and you close your left eye, whatever you're looking at won't move, but if you close your dominant eye, whatever you're looking at will shift a little bit. "
]
} | [] | [] | [
[],
[]
] |
|
4x5ped | how can there be a scientific adam and eve if there would of been multiple ancestors? | I heard my teacher saying theres a scientific eve which we can trace all humans to but they would of been many homo neanderrhals etc | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/4x5ped/eli5_how_can_there_be_a_scientific_adam_and_eve/ | {
"a_id": [
"d6cpi1h",
"d6cqj5z",
"d6cvwhg"
],
"score": [
6,
2,
3
],
"text": [
"It's called the most recent common ancestor. Basically all other lines of decent have died out at some point so we're all related in some way. At the time they lived, there were other people about, but all other decedents died off or were married into, leaving us all decedents of one common ancestor. ",
"\"Mitochondrial Eve\" and \"Y-chromosomal Adam\" were not alive at about the same time (most likely; if they were then it's random chance). They were not the first humans and didn't come just after neanderthals.\n\nTo figure out who Mitochondrial Eve is, imagine that there's a family. One couple has two daughters and those daughters go off and make a dozen grandchildren. Then everyone else on earth dies. \n\nAt this point every remaining human can look at their mother, then their mother's mother and they wind up at the same person. That person (i.e. the woman in the original couple) is now Mitochondrial Eve. It's a title that can move down generations whenever someone's line of offspring die off. Similarly, if the children look at their father (whoever married one of the two original daughters in our example) and their father's father, and so on, then they will *not* find a common ancestor (tracing only by looking at fathers) so easily. You'd have to trace likely hundreds of generations before you find one person who is every living human's father's father's father's ... father's father.\n\nNote that neither Mitochondrial Eve nor Y-Chromosomal Adam are the most recent common ancestor, either. For this we just have to tweak our scenario: instead of the original couple having two girls they have a boy and a girl (call 'em Alice and Bob), who each find a mate and make half a dozen children. Then everyone else on earth dies.\n\nWith this setup if you looked for Mitochondrial Eve then the children of Alice would look at Alice, then Alice's mother, and so on, while the children of Bob would look at Bob's wife, then her mother, and so on. It would take likely hundreds of generations to figure out who is everyone's mother's mother's mother's ... mother's mother. Same with father's father's ... father's father. But if you just want a common ancestor then you look to the original couple, as they're everyone's grandparents.",
"As others have said: Mitochondrial eve.\n\nAlso:\n\nSHOULD. HAVE.\n--\n\nwhere the bloody hell did this \"should of\" nonsense come from?!?"
]
} | [] | [] | [
[],
[],
[]
] |
|
4iljw7 | why does your body allow you to sleep if you're about to die? | [deleted] | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/4iljw7/eli5_why_does_your_body_allow_you_to_sleep_if/ | {
"a_id": [
"d2z1ro7",
"d2z1sie",
"d2z95mh"
],
"score": [
8,
2,
2
],
"text": [
"Your body doesn't \"know\" that medical intervention could potentially save it. Your body doesn't even \"know\" what medical intervention is; only that if your body's natural defenses have been exhausted, there's nothing left to fight what's attacking it. Speaking of which, your body is probably tired if it has been fighting something for some time. It rests for the same reasons anything rests; to recharge. ",
"I don't generally agree with the statement \"survival at any cost mode\" - this doesn't really happen, although we do have a good number of defenses and adaptations that have allowed us to avoid extinction. However, specifically, we have no knowledge here that falling asleep increased his chance of death - it may have well decreased it, but not sufficiently to avoid it. The body has not evolved with the possibility of medical attention as next step!",
"Sleeping or a coma is a way for the human body to spend more time on recovery and repair - not spending energy on movement, higher brain functions, talking, etc. Comas are often induced after head trauma to facilitate healing. \n\nIt sounds like the actor had a heart attack - the arm pain can be typical. In the case of a heart attack, part (or all) of the heart muscle is dying from lack of blood flow. Therefore, the heart is not pumping blood as efficiently as it designed to. Decreased blood flow means decreased oxygen in the blood; low blood oxygen tends to make people groggy/tired. "
]
} | [] | [] | [
[],
[],
[]
] |
|
2b4r54 | why don't those with authority (such as police officers) face the same penalties as ordinary citizens for crimes? | I'm just curious because everyday I hear about injustices to citizens from police offers, however they only get measly penalties such as being fired, whereas a normal person would be jailed, fined heavily, etc. | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/2b4r54/eli5why_dont_those_with_authority_such_as_police/ | {
"a_id": [
"cj1rvkb",
"cj1slut"
],
"score": [
33,
7
],
"text": [
"Officers are put into legally problematic positions as part of their jobs. For example it is the duty of an officer to use their service weapon to stop an armed criminal before they can injure or kill others. But if the officer makes a mistake the officer could injure or kill innocent bystanders. A regular person could avoid the whole issue by not firing at all, but an officer has a duty to fire; the reduced punishment in the event of a mistake is acknowledgment of the dissimilar circumstances.",
"In some cases, it's because there are some protections in the law that are specific to people in certain positions. For instance, in general, it would be a crime if I were to tie someone's hands together and hold them captive. A police officer, on the other hand, needs to be able to do this to accomplish their job and always runs the risk accidentally arresting an innocent person. As a result, the law recognizes this difference and gives cops a lot more leeway for something like this. As a result, I might be charged for kidnapping and battery for \"arresting\" someone, but the cop would not. \n\nAnother reason is based on reporting of events. If a police officer beats up someone while on duty, that's probably going to be newsworthy and you might hear about it. Perhaps media coverage will die down and you'll never hear about the full punishment the offender faced. Perhaps you will hear more coverage and if there's a light sentence, there will be outrage. However, if there's an altercation between, say, a husband and wife, you're not going to hear about that on the front page of the paper. And if one of those spouses gets a light sentence, few people will care so there won't be much outrage. \n\nTL;DR: Some professions require certain legal protections in order to do their jobs. Also, crimes by people like police draw media attention differently, so they're more likely to provoke outrage. "
]
} | [] | [] | [
[],
[]
] |
|
76luw2 | if proteins and enzymes denature at high temperatures, how do animals such as tardigrades survive under these conditions. | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/76luw2/eli5_if_proteins_and_enzymes_denature_at_high/ | {
"a_id": [
"doezdke",
"dof394e"
],
"score": [
9,
6
],
"text": [
"They have proteins that are designed to retain their shape at high temperatures. In fact, it's possible that those proteins won't function under more normal temperatures.",
"I can't speak about tardigrades specifically, but in many animals and humans, we have what are called heat shock proteins. These proteins are chaperone proteins and helps to properly fold other proteins when other there is stress on the cell like heat and UV radiation."
]
} | [] | [] | [
[],
[]
] |
||
2aw3s4 | big data | Could someone explain what exactly Big Data is. Is it a specific technology, or a term about different technologies.
If you could also explain to me some barriers for it to become mainstream, and why it is just starting to gain ground now | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/2aw3s4/eli5big_data/ | {
"a_id": [
"cizcemj"
],
"score": [
4
],
"text": [
"It's something of a buzzword and lacks a concrete definition. However, the idea is that our computational power now allows us to gather, store, and analyze vast amounts of information - magnitudes more than twenty or thirty years ago.\n\nThe implication is that the hugely increased scale of this data manipulation leads to a qualitative (not just quantitative) shift in both the tools that we need for working with it, and the benefits we get from analyzing it."
]
} | [] | [] | [
[]
] |
|
30czy4 | what algorithm or code is used to program traffic lights? | Who writes these codes? Are they somehow autotomatically adapting? If they are manually changed, who makes the decisions for the times and frequency the lights change? | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/30czy4/eli5_what_algorithm_or_code_is_used_to_program/ | {
"a_id": [
"cpr90z8"
],
"score": [
4
],
"text": [
"It's probably the city planning department. There may even be a traffic management sub-department, if the city is big enough.\n\nYou know how sometimes there's those [black tubes hooked up to a small box](_URL_1_) that's chained to a sign or post that stretches across the road? Those are car counters. That data is used to see traffic flow over time along various roads and intersections, and that, in turn, is used to tune the light cycles (which do change depending on time of day).\n\nYou may also notice [big loops engraved on the road](_URL_0_) (usually in the turn lanes) with lines running off to the traffic control box. Those are sensors which tell if there's a car there or not. Those also feed data into the control box and makes it so it doesn't stop oncoming traffic for cars to turn if there are no cars waiting to turn.\n\nTraffic management is a big deal. A lot of money goes into making and tuning the models used to tune the traffic lights for optimal traffic flow. Please note that \"optimal traffic flow\" doesn't mean \"every light has as few a people waiting the shortest time possible.\" For example, if one particular on ramp to a highway gets really congested, it could back up traffic for miles in every direction, both on the surface streets feeding it, and on the highway where people have to make room for a constant string of cars. The lights leading to that on ramp can be tuned in such a way as to limit the flow of traffic to that on ramp, making traffic flow better even though the lights themselves seem to be nonsensical in their timings.\n\nThat said, we need more roundabouts! Those things push more traffic through an intersection with greater safety than signals. But they do take up more room."
]
} | [] | [] | [
[
"http://i00.i.aliimg.com/img/pb/438/452/093/1093452438_607.jpg",
"http://www.cityofknoxville.org/images/engineering/traff_counter.jpg"
]
] |
|
4g9tln | what is the advantage of uber/ lyft over traditional cabs? | I ask because it seems like there often isn't a large cost difference so that can't be the game changer. You can schedule them with an app but you can do that with a lot of traditional cab companies now too. I don't have a dog in the hunt, just curious. What makes this revolutionary? | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/4g9tln/eli5_what_is_the_advantage_of_uber_lyft_over/ | {
"a_id": [
"d2fptnp",
"d2fpxwb",
"d2fq2j8",
"d2fsiy2",
"d2ft0wr",
"d2ftq5b",
"d2fyksk"
],
"score": [
22,
7,
2,
2,
9,
7,
2
],
"text": [
"I'm in Eastern/Central Europe so this may be different, but:\n\n- uber is cheaper\n- traditional cabs worked like mobs for a very long time, they still have a lot of shady practices (overcharge, extort, etc.)\n- not all cab companies have mobile apps\n- with uber you don't have to wait around to pay, you don't have to take out your wallet, cabs will sometimes refuse credit cards\n- for foreigners, with uber they can just type in the destination, plus cab drivers are mostly old and don't speak languages",
"They are typically cheaper, they are available on demand via an app (call for a cab & they'll arrive like 30min later -- maybe), typically nicer cars/drivers.",
"Uber is extremely cheap, more fairly priced imo. My boyfriend two timezones over was able to get me an uber that arrived within 10 minutes. And the driver was personable, polite, etc. When I looked up fare for cabs and tried to figure out how to get one it was much more complicated and cost 2 and 3 times as much for the same distance. ",
"It's considerably cheaper. Especially in places with heavy traffic or even with long distances. Plus, while there are \"hussles\" in Uber and Lyft the driver can utilize to squeeze more money out of you, in general it's more regulated prohibiting the drivers from being pricks. \n\nIt's the preferred method of transportation here. No hassle, generally kind people, cheaper, cleaner, less drama and so much so that the cab companies protest and block traffic on occasion because they're losing money hand over fist. \n\nIt's a game changer when the cabbies are notoriously awful. ",
"Cabbies were consistently late with no assurance they were even going to show up. Sometimes wouldn't take credit. But the final straw was two separate instances of cabbies going to long way to rack up the fare. At this point doesn't matter what cabs do, I'm forever a Lyft or Uber customer. The trust is gone. ",
"Another aspect of Uber that's beneficial is the surge pricing adjusts supply to meet demand, so that if the weather is terrible or it's New Year's Eve, etc. you can actually get one. Sure, it'll cost more, but better than waiting hours for a cap in a storm.",
"There *is* usually a cost difference. That's the whole reason they can be competitive.\n\nCab companies had to develop apps *in response to* Uber/Lyft etc. Before them, there was no reason to develop an app when that same phone could simply be used to call the cab company for a cab."
]
} | [] | [] | [
[],
[],
[],
[],
[],
[],
[]
] |
|
2cju3p | what would happen if a camera at the end of a rope is "thrown" through a black hole? | Hi Reddit. I have no background in the field of Physics, or any science for that matter. I was wondering what would happen if we were to tie a live-recording camera to the end of an extremely long rope and somehow throw it through a black hole, assuming whoever is at the other end of said rope isn't sucked in or something. | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/2cju3p/eli5_what_would_happen_if_a_camera_at_the_end_of/ | {
"a_id": [
"cjg6g13",
"cjg6i5a",
"cjg6imm",
"cjg79vh"
],
"score": [
3,
3,
2,
2
],
"text": [
"The camera would just be crushed due to the intense gravity as far as I know",
"The camera would be crushed, as would the rope. Neither would function or continue to exist as objects you'd recognize as \"rope\" or \"camera\".\n\n",
"The acceleration of objects near a black hole increases so exponentially that the camera would be ripped to shreds.\n\nIf for some reason (for the sake of argument) the camera remained whole it would just be crushed as it approached the intense gravity.",
"If by asking this question, you mean to ask \"what does the inside look like?\" Vsauce (on YouTube) has a good video about that; can't link as I'm on iPhone, sorry.\n\nYou might have been confusing black hole (hyper-dense object with immense, inescapable gravity) with wormhole (hole in space-time, I think?) in this case, I'm not sure we have an agreed upon hypothesis about what wormholes \"do\" when matter enters."
]
} | [] | [] | [
[],
[],
[],
[]
] |
|
3soosb | why do anime episodes often get removed from youtube for copyright but never get removed on sites like crunchyroll? | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/3soosb/eli5_why_do_anime_episodes_often_get_removed_from/ | {
"a_id": [
"cwz3d1b",
"cwz3evh",
"cwz3gay"
],
"score": [
12,
7,
3
],
"text": [
"CrunchyRoll pays the studios for the anime and either you pay a fee or have to watch commercials (or not if you use adblock)",
"Crunchyroll is a streaming company that negotiates licensing fees with content owners and anime studios. \n\nYoutube is simply a site where anyone can upload a video. So if someone random person uploads someone else's creation to try and make ad money, it gets removed. Since Crunchyroll pays the content producers and gets signed licenses allowing them to stream the content, they are allowed to.",
"Presumably because Cruncyroll is an anime hosting service that has gone through all of the legal steps to display the content. While some random user on YouTube has not, and YouTube takes it down because they don't want to host copyright content without the permission of the distributer."
]
} | [] | [] | [
[],
[],
[]
] |
Subsets and Splits
No community queries yet
The top public SQL queries from the community will appear here once available.