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2ij5kn | why does everything we drink, regardless of color, come out as either clear or yellow? | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/2ij5kn/eli5_why_does_everything_we_drink_regardless_of/ | {
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"Most dyes that are in food and drinks aren't absorbed into into the blood stream, and therefore do not make their way to the kidneys and out your body in your urine. Dyes and food coloring typically stay in your digestive tract and are excreted in your stool",
"your body pretty much breaks everything down. what comes out is waste and + urobilin which gives it the yellow color.\n\nBonus: beets can make your pee pink or red and green beer can make it greenish.",
"The stuff you drink doesn't actually come out as pee. The water gets taken out and it comes out as poop. The water that's taken out will eventually be used to flush out waste from the cells in the form of pee. The waste in that pee is not from what we drank.\n\nYou can test this yourself by drinking (or getting your child to drink) a lot of brightly colored, cheap \"juice.\" Don't use real juice, just the bright stuff with those plastic-molded twist off cap bottles. You know the stuff. In a day or two, you (or the child) will have poop of that color.\n\nIt happens all of the time with kids, bright red \"juice,\" and parents freaking out thinking that their child has severe rectal bleeding."
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5ftr1z | why does scratching a wound give such a pleasure when it is considered bad ripping it up, leaving it open for infections etc.? | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/5ftr1z/eli5_why_does_scratching_a_wound_give_such_a/ | {
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"This question is still being researched today because there isn't a clear understanding of why we have an itchy response. But most believe the itchiness of a scab or cut is from the body releasing histamines as part of the healing process. Histamines cause mild allergic reactions, but signal to other cells to divide to fill the wound. \nThe pleasure part could just be from satisfying the itch, just like any other itch on your body, but in this case involves removing of a scab as collateral. \nSome people who habitually scrape at wounds and scratches are thought to have a form of OCD, but that is for extreme cases, and they may get pleasure from fulfilling their compulsion.",
"My thought was that it was a response that was to increase blood flow to a wound or clean wounds via bleeding.",
"LPT: Scratch beside the wound on both sides and it'll feel as though you're scratching it without disrupting the scar. ",
"I like to itch around it as to not make it prone to infection or any bacteria. But just applying flat pressure such as your palm and gently rotate it on the wound tends to alleviate the itch",
"This is almost certainly to call attention to the area so that you can evaluate a wound, sore, pustule, etc. The wound may be infected and in need of picking (draining), or it could be harboring parasites, or debris such as splinters or ingrown hairs. Since your body doesn't have a lot of sensory signaling mechanisms, itching/tickling serves as a universal, \"hey, check this out\" for a variety of potential issues.\n\nWhen a wound heals, itching usually comes later during the healing process when you are less likely to cause yourself an infection, and removing (debriding) scabs and dead tissue can help wounds heal.",
"When you have a cut or any break in the skin then you have a message to the brain that says \"look look! Something bad\" so you scratch. The message is supposed to be so you can make sure you're ok but it's not pain because the skin isn't cut deep enough to reach those receptors. It's because of a histamine response that's supposed to protect that part of your body and it's why using an allergy cream makes the itch go away. ",
"For me it's partly the tightness a scab can cause. Idk if I imagine it but sometimes you feel like the scab is pulling a bit so ripping it off is wonderful because it's a release. The other part is it's annoying to have a raised hard bump on your skin. You're hyper aware of it and keep running your hand over it and get a huge urge to take it off and be 'smooth' again. At least I do haha",
"Because not everything in our body makes sense. As long it doesn't kill (too early at least) it will go to your kids. Simple as that. So scratching an itch is pleasant and scratching a wound won't kill you in most cases. Evolution won't drop things that you can live with. ",
"Some sciencey show I watched a long while back said that itching injuries (not just scabs) was a thing because it temporarily numbed the nerve endings, making the pain go away.\n\nFrom that, I would guess that it generally feels good because your brain pumps some '*good boy*' chemicals in as a reward for 'removing' the source of pain.",
"I'm no entirely sure if this is what you're asking about, but I'll answer it as easily and simply as I can.\n\nThere is a known phenomenon where scratching around a wound can dull the pain or irritation felt. To understand why this effect is real, you have to look at the specific interactions at a nervous level. Pain goes through multiple pathways, two of which are the fast pain pathway (which tells your body the location of the pain) and the slow pain pathway (which communicates the typical discomfort associated with pain).\n\n[This image](_URL_0_) gives a very simple to understand example of Gate Control theory, which is responsible for the effect. Pain and touch go through separate pathways. In this case, the red line represents the pain pathway. As you can see, the touch pathway in blue can actually excite an interneuron, which in turn inhibits the pain pathway by releasing endorphins to effectively blunt the perception of pain. \n\nI hope this somewhat explains the idea that touching the area around a wound is pleasurable, or at the very least alleviates some the pain or irritation in an understandable and fairly simplistic manner."
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5h3dk8 | how does dry heat cause nose bleeds? | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/5h3dk8/eli5_how_does_dry_heat_cause_nose_bleeds/ | {
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32dstr | why do dogs go crazy, and get "the zoomies," after a bath? | Wow, front page! I never expected that to happen at all. I gave my dog a bath earlier, made this post, then went on to do laundry and other boring housework. Just got back on here to see if anyone had commented, and was surprised by all of the great responses...thanks guys! TIL my dog FRAPs out after a bath, and your dogs do too! | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/32dstr/eli5_why_do_dogs_go_crazy_and_get_the_zoomies/ | {
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"Ugh my dogs go psycho. I think they do it to help them dry off faster? I'll give my dog a towel after a bath and she'll just run herself all over that thing ",
"Dogs are a close relative of the wolf, and are descendants of predators. Their natural instinct in the wild is to hide their scent from prey: when you bathe them, this scent camouflage is washed away, so their immediate instinct is to find something smelly enough to mask their scent.\n\nI don't have a source for this, my knowledge comes from a discovery channel docuentary I watched years ago.",
"I would think maybe they're trying to air dry themselves? That's what it kinda seems like",
"Actually we don't know the real reason why dog's have a habit of doing this but there's a lot of theories.\n\n1. Dogs don't like the extra weight of the water on their bodies and so they try and get dry as quickly as they can\n\n2. The water washes their scent and so they run and roll around in order to get their scent back\n\n3. The dog's scared of the taking a bath, so when the bath is over they have a bunch of adrenaline and so they have a lot of energy afterwards\n\nThere's a few other theories. But there's no concrete proof that any theories are correct",
"The technical name for zoomies is Frenetic Random Activity Periods or FRAP. We're not sure why dogs do it but it tends to decrease with age and most dogs do it after baths. ",
"Zoomies, are a way that dogs release their fear. They only do this when they feel comfortable and trusting in their environment and it's a way for them to dissipate all the adrenaline. \n\nEdit: [One of many sources](_URL_0_)",
"I think part of the display of energy afterwards is that the dog has become \"free\".",
"I read that dogs do this because in the wild being wet could make the difference between life or death. Dogs rely on their fur for insulation, so when they're wet it increases their risks for hypothermia. They need to get that water off their bodies as soon as possible.\n\nI read that long ago, I could be wrong.",
"I always thought it was because he had to pee. And he does, after every bath.",
"Their normal thermal equilibrium is drastically affected by having their fur saturated with water, especially when oil-stripping chemicals are in the mix. The effect is a decrease in the amount of heat they retain. In order to not go hypothermic, they run around to get their blood/muscles to do their thing, and keep em warm until the oils they naturally produce coat their fur again and take over the job.",
"I assumed my dog just felt good. He does this when I let him out on the patio for some fresh air too. ",
"I believe my dog does it because she knows she's going for a walk soon.",
"Lots of good theories in this thread; but one reason could be that while taking a bath, dogs feel 'trapped' in a way, since they are instructed to not move much during the bath, and get excited when you 'set them free'. ",
"I believe that it would be closest to the adrenaline theory because my dog also gets zoomies after a bath but he also gets them after he gets in trouble lol",
"I have a cat only, explain? ",
"Trainers and behaviorists call these FRAPs: frenetic random activity periods. A lot of pet lovers just call them “zoomies.” Puppy and young dogs are most likely to engage in these bursts of crazy, but even an old dog can sometimes get the zoomies, especially with a pup to spur him on. Sometimes dogs can be trained to respond with a “zoomie clue” from you: If you mimic a play bow (front down, rear up and a smile on your face), your dog may jump right in to play with you and then it’s FRAP time.\n\nSource:_URL_0_",
"ELI5: You know that feeling when you've washed clean and the wind feels good on your skin? The touch of your bed spread, even if its not clean, feels cleaner? The wind through your nuts or breasts?\n\nThe dog is trying to capture that feeling while it lasts.\n\nI am not a scientist, but I think like a dog sometimes.",
"Does anyone have a video example of this??",
"combination of them drying off and masking their scent.",
"It has to do with temperament, I think. I have two dogs. The high strung Border Aussie goes mental after a bath and my mild mannered Boxer just wants to go lay down somewhere warm and try to get back to a place where he can trust me again. ",
"i am not a dog psychiatrist but i am pretty positive its there instinct to get dry, sort of like us when we get cold we shiver. \ndogs have hair all over there body and its gonna take a bit more then shivering in place to get rid of the moisture in there coat. it seems like a instinct with most dogs but i have seen a few that were obviously trying to dry off using tools like a blanket lol. :) yeah dogs dont have towels and i'm sure it would help most any breed of dog to have a instinct to get dry. \n",
"My parents have a Dachshund/Beagle Mix. One of the laziest dogs you'd ever meet. Very anti-social. Doesn't give a flying fuck if you call him over. Hates when you sit on the couch when he's laying there. He's also a stinky bastard. He's not a big fan of baths, but when he's let go after he's dried off, he goes to the kitchen, everyone that's home will chant his name and he will run laps from to the dining room, through the kitchen, into the living room and back. And he'll do this 10-15 times or until we no longer chant his name. He's like the Frank the Tank, of Dogs.",
"\"The zoomies\" actually has a scientific name, it's a FRAP (Frenetic Random Activity Periods). When a dog gets over stimulated they do this to play and burn off excess energy. All dogs do it when young and they eventually out grow it. Although, based on their normal activity level, even an older dog can build up enough energy that some excitement can through them into a FRAP to burn off that energy.",
"Scents are a communicable memory storage system for dogs. Wash it away, and they can't communicate very well. woof! *\"Must go roll in dead thing, and then rub it against humans!\"",
"Many dogs feel restrained when being bathed. They may tolerate it but it’s not something they’re eager to do. When they’re finally able to jump out of that tub it’s as if they’re experiencing pure freedom. No longer held back by you (their evil shampoo wielding owner) they are free, and with that feeling comes excitement.\n\nImagine you’ve just done something you were terrified of whether that’s sky diving or riding in that scary elevator at work that’s always breaking down when you’re done you often feel a sense of adrenaline. It’s a rush of excitement if you were able to conquer that then you can do anything.\n\nMany people speculate dogs experience a similar level or excitement and exhilaration once they’re freed from the tub. It might be the pent up nervous energy or it might just be a sense of freedom. Whatever it is the end result is usually the same; no holds barred zoomies.\n\n",
"Because most dog owners get anxious before giving their dog a bath and inadvertently pass that energy on to their dog.",
"I always thought it was because they don't take baths very often so it feels super duper awesome to be clean to them. ",
"Does this have anything to do with why my cat runs around the house 3 times after he shits? I've heard it's called the litter box derby",
"Zoomies are a stress release. There are many articles out there that say as much. Some dogs will stress up and release this tension with more energy (barking, jumping, zoomies, etc) and some will stress down and do the opposite (tail tucked, avoidance, slowing of movements, etc). Some will even do a mixture of both.\n\nIt's not them trying to get dry or them getting their scent back. That's ridiculous. If this was true, why would dogs do it in different settings without water being involved?\n\nI know some people are going to counter this by saying their dogs just LOVE swimming so here's some examples of where stress can come into play. Being carried into a bath tub can be a stressful situation. Being contained in a room while being scrubbed down can be a stressful situation. Maybe the room you bathe your dog in is the room you clip their toe nails, which they hate. Maybe you've bathed your dog in a situation that wasn't fun for the dog once, so it predicts that the not so fun situation will happen again. (e.g. Fido rolled in a mud puddle. You yell at fido and grab the hose to wash him off.) Maybe your dog doesn't enjoy the feeling of its fur being wet, or the cold that comes with it. Maybe your dog loves jumping into the lake because you've thrown toys in their for the dog to fetch. Your dog may love toys enough to hop into the water to fetch them, but that doesn't mean it loves water.",
"Maybe they just feel better after the experience?",
"I thought my dog just wanted everyone to see how pretty he now was and how good he smelt. ",
"\"The zoomies\" is the best phrase ive ever heard for this",
"My dog also does it after he poops. Pooping seems fairly stressful for him - it takes him, like, 10 minutes to find a good spot and circle it exactly right, and he often cries while he is looking. I always assumed the zoomie insanity that frequently follows was sheer joy from the sudden feeling of bowel lightness and general wellbeing. Who doesn't feel better after a good poop?\n\nMy other dog does not poop like a weirdo. And he doesn't go mental after a bath. He seems humiliated for being wet and distrustful of those who made him that way. But to be fair, he looks pretty stupid when he is wet. ",
"I always thought that my dog hated it because he was cold and ran around to warm up/dry faster. We always towel him down but his hair just won't frickin dry perfectly. ",
"My cat gets the 'zoomies' every night when he wants to go outside. Runs around the house like he's gone insane, but it lets me know he wants to go out. =P",
"my dog was simply cold and instantly rushed to a warm place or under a blanket to dry off.",
"Because they are overwhelmed by the smells. Getting dirty, or rolling in the dirt helps them get accustomed to the million+ smells around them.\n[Source - My Dad]",
"Try having a springer spaniel. Those dogs are made of 24/7 zoomie.\n\nSource: former springer owner",
"I didn't know there were others who called their dogs hyper mode zoomies too.",
"I know the reason my dog does it is because she has to go outside right afterwards to take a fat dump.",
"Lol I didn't realize most dogs do this. When mine does I can't tell if she's happy or annoyed because she looks happy when she goes crazy. But before I release her from the bathroom she's really well behaved and calm.",
"Clicked my way here because I read \"the zombies\". Disappointed. Carry on please.",
"Our dog gets the zoomies after taking a dump, or his poo dance as we call it.",
"I think that having water on them sort of creates a tickling sensation or something because they run around really fast and then usually roll on their backs",
"Rough drying your dog after a bath hypes them up to. If you dry them very gently with a towel they are less likely to zoom.",
"The technical term is 'playing.' It's seen in many species of mammals, including humans.",
"Huh, I've never heard of this. My dog just looks really sad and hides in his bed after a bath. He hates water more than anything.",
"GLI5 (guessing...) After a bath, their hair is all messed up and probably feels uncomfortable, poking into them, going in different directions than natural cowlicks and whatnot. What would get the hair rearranged would, I assume, be using all the usual range of motion in a compressed period of time. Kind of like breaking in a pair of pants.. Except doing it with their whole coat at once.\n",
"What is/are \"the zoomies\"? I've never heard this term before.",
"I always thought they were trying to both dry themselves off and get their natural smell back on.",
"Indeed it is weird! My dog does it too..Never figured it out... _URL_0_\n",
"The post bath zoomies! Our guy does high-speed figure eights in the yard like it's the funnest thing ever. My theory is that the water gets into his brain and causes a short circuit.",
"This doesn't happen to our dogs. They just sulk and look as manipulatively-sad as they can after a bath. We've had 7 in our time and I don't remember any getting 'the zoomies'.\n\nThey are springer spaniels, though, which have a larger number of specific traits bred into them so maybe this response is missing from them. In fact, after bath time is one of the few moments they aren't going mental.",
"I wouldn't be surprised if it had something to do with why a lot of kids would love to jump through a puddle or run into some waves on the beach.",
"I don't really care why it goes crazy but it's soo funny. Once my friend who was scared of dogs came over when my dog had a bath and my friend had to make a pillow fort because they were too scared",
"They think they are too clean and want to share it with everything.",
"It's like they are so glad it's over that they go crazy and run all over the house. ",
"The zoomies are another term for a short lived (for most dogs, 5 minutes or so, depends on age too) power surge of energy. They often will run fast and manically about wild eyed, back and forth, or in big loops, running over, on top of, or under things. It's as if they were suddenly, mystically summoned to go wild.\n\nAsk any vet or (degreed) behaviorist, and they'll tell you these are most likely to occur in the morning (burning off any pent up energy), and once in the evening for a lot of dogs (people come home, activity pattern change excitement, burning off pent up energy and boredom).\n\nAlthough quite domesticated and hugely different from wolves (much like we are as primates from apes), they have retained being crepuscular, which means they are most active at dawn and dusk. Pets often modify these times from dusk or dawn to when there is activity in the home (wake up and early evening), and these innate energy patterns play out, with enthusiasm/'reunions', change of activity in home, mild stress (just funneling that energy really), lots of things can triggering it too, and in combination of that special time of day *and* a triggering event, a pretty sure thing some people can predict even - especially in puppies. \n\nZoomies will be especially frequent if it is rewarded. If dogs get a lot of attention, or play/fun connections with people or other dogs ensues after 'zoomies', then that behavior is more likely to occur with more frequency, or intensity, etc ahead. Some dogs are very accidentally \"trained\" (by cause and effect) to be half crazed ricocheting maniacs because they have the most fun for being zoomie infested half out of their mind often. If the good stuff in life (attention, play and action) all come from being batshit crazy (they get hyper = they get attention or action), they'll embrace that too. It works. What gives them the most pleasure they'll keep. Whoops!!!!\n\nThose are only the most common reasons for the zoomies! There are common denominators in many 'why's' of behavior. Dogs are neat because science of behavior has been studied in animals so much, especially in the past 20 years, we've gotten a lot figured out about them. Some things are innate (nature). And some are cause and effect/instilled by experience - the nurture. Thing of it is with dogs, we know a lot of the difference, even down to neuroscience, neurochemistry, and what is nature and what is nurture in what they do, and how to fix and manage things best knowing the difference!\n\nTl;DR: Science of zoomies.\n\nEdit: Thanks for my first gilding, made my day, got the zoomies.\n",
"Our 6month old Great Dane does the zoomies (love that phrase) and he she doesnt need a bath!. Danger! big boned dog zooming around inside small house....zoom....zoom!",
"What about after a poop?",
"I always knew as putting on turbo, I pike it better thqn \"zoomies\" I think",
"What about rain? I know my dog runs around crazy when he gets inside from the rain.",
"We had a zoomie circuit in our house...living room to hall to kitchen to den back to living room. Complete with a sofa on the far wall of the den for rebounding off the back to turn from kitchen to den direction back to den to livingroom direction. zoom, zoom, zoom.\n\nHe liked walkies and sniffles too (what we liked to call visits to outdoors for doing his business).",
"My dog get's the zoomies after it poops. It's like she's scared of her own crap.",
"Alot of dogs get water in their ears and it drives them crazzzy!",
"My dog (Pomeranian) FRAPs from time to time, but after a bath, he finds a blanket or bed or whatever he can and just rubs himself all over it trying to dry himself off. Just scooting his body against a blanket or towel for a good portion of time.",
"I always assumed it was because they were cold and can generate some heat by running around. My dog seems to love baths and will run into the bathroom when I say \"bath time.\" And he loves being dried off. He'll flip the towel in the air until I grab it and get the excess water off. But if I hit him with the blow drier too, he doesn't seem to run around as much (if at all).",
"We call it the \"puppy runs\"....\nI now realize that it sounds like they have really bad diarrhea... ",
"my Schnauzer is like that also after only a face wash, trying to dry his beard as quickly as possible. I don't know if it has to have to do with extra weight - I assume he just doesn't like being wet. I also dry my beard after I wash my face - didn't even think about extra weight (until now, obviously).\n\nHe's also trying to help me dry my leg hair by licking it when i get out of the shower. My wife said \"well, you're drying his feet when you come back inside from a walk, so...\" which made sense, I guess.",
"My dog will either jump on our bed and roll around it, run his body across the side of the bed or couch, or roll around dirty clothes if available. He seems to desperately want to get our stink back on him.",
"I think my dog just cold and runs around to get warm.",
"My dogs do \"the zoomies\" after they poop. Every. damn. time.",
"I always think it's because they're cold when wet. And it's probably just really uncomfortable. Same reasons we dry our hair. ",
"it's not just the bath, I would say it's whenever they have any sort of excitement they need to get out.. I imagine, in the wild, they would run with their mates, but in a house? zoomies",
"i'm not sure why but i am pretty sure they think its pretty funny to shake off any water on their fur in range of a human.",
"\"the zoomies\" is the funniest, but best term to describe this",
"My dog does this after she poops, she'll practically pull me across the yard because she's so excited (she's a bulldog so she can't quite do it).",
"\"Blitzing\" is the typical used word in the U.S. for \"the zoomies\"... certain dog breeds ate more prone to it (Bichons, poodles, Collies, etc...)",
"used to say \"Mad Dog Mad Dog\"\n\nmine used to do this after every bath - 8 lbs soaking wet and ran like a bat out of hell....loved that little beastie",
"This also happens after they take an incredibly satisfying shit.",
"I thought my chihuahua just wanted to dry off by running and rolling around.\nHe's very chill during the bath , but afterwards he's a rocket ship",
"Labs tend to love water and will shake it off by command or on their own. To each dog their own.",
"It's like I bathed my dog in red bull every time",
"All dogs are different.\n \nOne of my dogs gets super excited after he poops. He doesn't like baths but doesn't get super active after them either.\n \nThe other doesn't mind baths but loves getting rubbed with towels. That's the extent of her hyperactivity post bath.",
"I don't know about everyone else but I run around like a nut when I get out of the shower. \n\nIt isn't a pretty sight if I don't grab a towel first. \n\nWho am I kidding ? It isn't a pretty sight any way.",
"Omg I always thought my dog was just a psycho. Great ELI5!",
"LOL@ \"the zoomies\" \n\nI always wanted a phrase to explain that behavior ",
"My gf and I just call it 'a mood.' Like, \"Watch out he's in a mood again!\"",
"I wish I could give you an extra upvote for \"the zoomies!\"",
"TIL the zoomies is a real term used for dogs when they get all rambunctious and runny. Thought it was just a thing my friend and I used for our crazy husky dogs.",
"Interesting... I've had more than a dozen dogs since I was kid (as many as 8 at a time), and I've never heard of \"the zoomies\" or witnessed one doing this after a bath.",
"Oh man our first family dog used to do this and this post brings back really funny memories. Rip buttons.",
"TIL dogs go crazy and get \"the zoomies\" after a bath",
"Imagine you vacuumed all the electrons off an object. It would zoom around seeking any negatively charged object. It's like that with your dog and poop.",
"Never heard it called the \"zoomies\" before but I love that term.",
"French bulldogs are like the masters of zoomies. Mine does it after he poops, or just decided to run circles inside the house. It's so funny.\n",
"I didn't know this was a real thing! I always just assumed my dogs went crazy post-bath because I towel dry them really vigorously and rile them up! ",
"My dog also does this when he goes underwater at the local river!!",
"I'd say the reason they run around so much is that they're freezing. If you take a cold shower, you'll jump around and yell and jump around until you're warm. I think they're doing the same thing. Dogs have an average body temp that is higher than humans, so even though you think you're giving your dog a reasonably warm bath, its probably pretty chilly for the dog.",
"My dog does this after getting inside from taking a poop. It is like his empty GI magically fills up with cocaine after he drops a deuce. ",
"I read zoomies as zombies- for a while I was reading through the comments completely baffled, thinking get that dogs were hallucinating about zombies after a bath. Weird. ",
"So this means I am not the only one who gets their dog all excited by yelling zoom at it until it starts running around?",
"we yell \"FRISKAAAaaaaAAAAAY!!\" and it's zoom-zoom time",
"TIL about zoomies/FRAPs... I love watching my doxies spazz out after baths. Such a weird thing!",
"I think I'm in the minority with having a dog that gets out of the bath, finds his favourite bed, curls up and sleeps until dry. All our previous dogs had zoomies, but our wheatie? Nope, he sleeps it off.",
"my dog does this when i \"uncrate\" him, doesn't matter how long he was in there. Runs around in circles like an idiot lol ",
"Mine does it after he poops. He's very proud of himself.\n\nI hear the dog door open with a crack, and him clicking and sliding across the tile floor until he reaches terminal velocity on the hallway rug then launches himself over the arm of the doggy love seat in my office. I'm constantly having to adjust the thing because it slides across the room from his momentum. \n\nIf I don't attack him and play with him right then, he looks like he's about to lose his shit!",
"I think it has to do with the fact that dogs are naturally oily by nature. When you bathe them, it strips the oil off their skin. We can compare this feeling to taking a hot shower in the winter time. Personally, I get all itchy and have involuntary twitches until I can get some lotion on my skin. \n\nI can only imagine my dog feels the same way after a bath, hence the zoomies and random dirt rolling immediately after she is let outside. ",
"The zoomies? You mean the runs : p",
"At our house we call it the \"running hee-bee-jeebies\". As soon as they are done getting toweled off after a bath they start doing sprints around the perimeter of our backyard. We also have a pitbull mix that will sprint from corner to corner digging random holes in the ground.",
"People say they grow out of it... \n\nNever have they owned a Husky before.",
"Im pretty sure they do it to dry their fur.",
"How bought this one: They just feel good?",
"The Zoomies hahah. my dog goes nuts as soon as I put him on the ground. ",
"Omg, zoomies. Never heard the phrase. Knew exactly what you were talking about."
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1v7ydp | what is the foreword of a book? | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/1v7ydp/eli5_what_is_the_foreword_of_a_book/ | {
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"A foreword isn't a part of the original work itself. It's sort of an introduction to the work by another person (usually another writer, or an editor or scholar of some sort) who either knew/knows the author of the work, or has studied/worked with them. It's intended to give you something of an appreciation for what's to come."
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25dghp | why are the chinese taking over africa? | In South Africa they want build a whole new town the New York of Africa. In Mozambique they build highways, airports.. Do they get resources like diamonds and oil from the government or do they hope to expand their habitat and expand en masse? | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/25dghp/eli5_why_are_the_chinese_taking_over_africa/ | {
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"Africa has lot of natural resources and needs lots of money.\n\nChina has lots of money and a growing need for natural resources.\n\nIts nothing new, the US and Europe have been doing the same things for a very long time. China is just the newest player in the \"let's fuck Africa\" game.",
"Farmland. China cannot produce anywhere near enough food to feed their own people, they have ~20% of the worlds population but only ~9% of the worlds farmland, and much of that is polluted and/or remote and/or inefficiently farmed. In an effort to alleviate this they have been buying vast tracts of land in Africa for food production.\n\nAfrica is not the only region where they are doing this. China recently purchased an area the size of Belgium in eastern Ukraine for food production. Chinese firms also have large farm holdings in South America, Australia and even the United States.\n\n",
"For hundreds of years now, major powers have looked at ways to strengthen their economies. Back in the Industrial Revolution, factory productivity increased dramatically. Industrial powers (mostly Western European countries, plus the US) looked to Africa and Asia as sources of cheap raw materials and markets where they could sell finished goods. In this early model, the colonies were conquered militarily and governed by the colonial powers. \n\nThis model fell apart after WWII when it was no longer tenable for European countries to hold onto their colonies. This was a combination of the level of damage done to the UK, France, Germany, etc but also a growing realization of the idea that colonies deserved independence. \n\nToday, China is a rising global power. Much of the economic growth has come from being a very effective low-cost exporter. However, over the coming decades as the Chinese middle class grows, it will become more expensive to maintain this manufacturing edge. Just like England needed India in the 18th century, China very much wants to develop strong relationships with Africa. \n\nDespite the historical parallels, some things really are different for China than they were for the European powers. For one thing, it's no longer considered acceptable to militarily subjugate another country. China has an advantage in this regard. When many African nations became independent there was an understandable anti-capitalist sentiment. After all, capitalism had removed millions of Africans as slaves and harshly dealt with hundreds of millions more as colonial subjects. Many of the first governments established in newly independent African countries leaned towards Communism. As you can imagine, since this happened at the height of the Cold War, these countries were not treated well by the US and this only deepened anti-Western feelings, even in cases where the socialist governments descended into dictatorships or other models of failed governance. \n\nMany of these countries now see China as offering a third way: a nominally socialist economy that has still managed to bring many millions out of poverty and become a major global power on its own terms.\n\nThe Chinese government is spending very heavily on infrastructure development in Africa: roads, bridges, power, water, etc. These gifts help establish stronger ties between China and African countries and they are also be very useful investments in allowing the local economies to globalize. \n\nTL;DR: Many African countries are skeptical about Western-style capitalism. China gives them cool stuff that will help them buy goods from China in the future. ",
"Africa is one of the few places where cost of manufactoring is cheaper than China but it's lack of infrastructure has been one of the major hampers in attracting investors. China probably sees that if it's one of the first countries that aggressively improves the infrastructure they will have a foot in the door when companies start moving away from China as prices rise due to higher wages as China grows into an economic power.",
"Free trade.\n\nFree trade works based upon one idea: Relative efficiencies. \n\nYou see, while China may have more workers than any other country in the world, it also has a ton of money. Comparing its workers to its money, you see that relatively, it is a capital rich and labor poor country. Compared to itself. Capital rich countries need to invest their money into capital poor labor rich countries. This is Africa to a T. Even if Africa hardly had any workers, it doesn't really have any money. So it will always be labor rich and capital poor. China simply gets the most bang for its buck by investing in such places.\n\nNow then, there are other considerations. Any country that intends on going to war or at least would like the option needs a constant supply of natural resources. Africa is simply the best for almost any natural resource you need. Diamonds, gold, minerals (real money), uranium, Africa has it all.\n\nIn the past, Europe tried to get those resources through imperialism. After WWII, America tried to get those resources by destabilizing the countries for so long that any multi national corporation could swoop in and set themselves up into such a position of power that the access to those resources could be guaranteed. America did this in Nigeria and Congo as two prime examples. And it totally worked in Nigeria. (I'm aware Nigeria's gas is controlled by a British corporation.) \n\nChina is just following its own philosophy: take over not by conquest, or anarchy, but by investing and creating good will.",
"In addition to some of the other points in the thread, the IMF and World Bank will usually place fairly strict rules on their loans: economic & political restructuring, human rights requirements, etc. For many African countries who are still fighting (ethnic and political coalitions) through governmental reformations, China is a welcome partner since they are a bit more freewheeling with their loan expectations. \n*edit for clarity",
"Honestly: Resources and a stupid populace. Downvote me all you want. I have done business in Africa with Chinese people who are there for this exact purpose. Indians and Chinese kick ass in business in Africa because the locals are no where near as intelligent. I knew one Chinese man who was fluent in Swahili. The locals couldn't fathom this. He would go to meetings with a translator and people would offer the translator money to screw him over. He could understand everything. Like idiots they said how much money they could pay in front of him, and he understood it and raked in money as a result. He repeated this process about 50 times and retired by age 30.",
"One thing I haven't seen mentioned is the global power balance between Russia, the US, and China (also, India). Ideally, China would want to trade with other countries in South East Asia instead of Africa. \n\nHowever, there are problems with that. China has been involved in wars with Japan (1931-1945), Korea (1950-1953), Vietnam (1979), the USSR (1969), India (1962), and of course the rocky relationship with Taiwan. \n\nThe USSR and the US have exploited this. Japan, South Korea, and India are the 4th, 5th, and 10th largest trading partners for the US (China 3rd). Those countries are also very important export targets for Russia.\n\nMeanwhile, Russia supplies oil to the EU and exports/imports from many former Soviet Union countries. The US has similar ties to the EU and also is the dominant trade partner for Mexico, Canada, and Brazil.\n\nSo China has few options to continue expanding. Russia and the US already have a decent margin on China's home turf (helped by tensions in the area), and both Russia and the US already have firm control over other industrialized markets.\n\nThe solution? If China can't find a new trading partner, they'll build one. As their economy grows, they need more and more natural resources and they have few other options. Additionally, China's main advantage (a massive, cheap manufacturing base) will start to weaken over time as the Chinese middle class grows. Shifting production to Africa will help satisfy growing consumer demands in their own country.\n\n((I'll note, however, that everyone trades with everyone else, so this is simplistic. China still trades with other SE Asia countries, and the EU, and Russia, and the US. Still, they don't have enough room to continue growing with their current trade partners)). \n\n",
"China is now the world leader in solar panels. They also are very heavily state invested in desalinization. My guess, and it's purely a guess, is that China views Africa as its future source of cheap labor. Their own population is becoming more middle class. If they can provide electricity and water to drought prone regions, the residents will be more than pleased to work cheap in return for not starving to death.",
"The Han Chinese have an expat trader class that are about as smart on average as any peoples of the earth. They look for business opportunities. They organize. IMHO as a white dude I would not minded living as a minority among them. \n\n(Except Singapore. That place is too fucking hot.) \n\nAnyway, this is the Chinese (as opposed to the run of the mill Han) who is expanding into Africa. They don't want to run the joint (well they will run the joint but try to install popular puppets).\n\nThis clasd has worn out it's welcome a few places (Viet Nam, East Timor). But as long as there is money to be made, they will be there.\n\nLet's see how many Chinese gals will intermarry. I bet that figure will be about none. ",
"When I was in college, I was really involved in Model UN. I wanted to work for the UN really bad and studied international relations and I even interned at the UN and sat in UN sessions for the International Criminal Court. There's a very common saying in the international relations circles and academia that \"the West doesn't care about Africa.\"\n\nWhether the statement is true or not, many people in the world, especially Africans, resent it. The saying stems from a lot of colonialism and imperialism throughout history in Africa from European imperialists, slave traders in America, etc. While Asia and Africa were both home to underdeveloped countries at the turn of the last century, Asia has enjoyed a lot of investment from the West so much that China, Korea, Taiwan, India, etc have all become economic powerhouses in the past few years. Most of this has come from the seed money of Western investment. \n\nThe general consensus is that the West is only interested in Africa for natural resources, but isn't interested in investing in its long term infrastructure. Whether it's the Western desire to exploit Africa or that that Africa lacks strong leadership to demand purposeful long-term investment at the cost of short term gains for themselves is debatable. My guess it's a mix of both. For America, we haven't gotten involved militarily in Africa since the fiasco in Somalia (of Black Hawk Down fame), yet we will commit troops in Kuwait, Iraq, Afghanistan, Kosovo, etc. Usually when some genocide or violent uprising happens in Africa, Western countries donate a hundred troops or \"elite military trainers\" but never entire regiments or boots on the ground to stop the violence. \n\nWhat China is doing is a strategic long-term investment in Africa because Africa is a vacuum of influence by the West. The West, focused in long term interests in the Middle East and now Eastern Europe doesn't have the time or resources to counter China's moves in Africa. China has also studied how the West's interactions with Africa over the years and learned NOT to simply come and take what they need. They know that they will need Africa in the long run so they build roads, bridges, tunnels and all sorts of infrastructure to facilitate trades with their African partners. China knows it is going to be consuming lots of natural resources for the foreseeable future. And instead of competing with the US and Europe, China wants to build strong relations with Africa to gain access to those resources where the West is not entrenched. \n\nFrom the African perspective, China is a country that has no imperial or colonial history in Africa. They see China as a fellow third world country that has grown powerful and influential and wish to duplicate its success. China presents itself as not conquerors but fellow brothers of the third world. Also, China can be a great source of income and investment without the traditional moral judgement attached by aid from the West. China often does not care about democracy, human rights, land rights of indigenous peoples, or environmental sustainability. This allows for certain strong-armed African leaders whom might evoke the ire of the Western public opinion to grow powerful and influential from Chinese cooperation but could not from the West.\n\nIn China, the central government is also fanning the China-African cooperative movement. Popular Chinese media shows show stories about Africans studying abroad in China, or Africans who can trace their lineage from long-thought-lost Chinese expeditions in Africa. Mixed Chinese-African offspring from interracial families have gotten into the limelight in Chinese Media through of mix of gawking novelty and budding Chinese international identity. African laborers and migrant workers are becoming increasingly prevalent in China a well as alarming number of African women becoming involved in the Chinese sex trade. \n\nA lot has been written about the Chinese focus on Africa and how the West isn't doing enough to counter them. Many blame that the American public simply do not have an interest in the affairs of Africa. We all see the charity and aide commercials about starving children in Africa. While some give some insignificant amounts of money, few are willing to invest significant amounts of money to build capital there. \n\n\n**EDIT** Wow thank you for the gold kind stranger! :D\n\nAlso I want to mention that I do not work for the UN. I just wanted to but getting in was so hard. I work for a bank now X_x",
"I heard Chinese is now an official language in Zimbabwe. ",
"Highways, airports, infrastructure... these sound like good thing to me. The West already fucked Africa over... seems China is at least genuinely helping",
"Money, you nit-wit.",
"In 20 years we are going to see China become more and more powerful. Not necessarily a bad thing. We may see it as something bad because America portrays them as that, they are the east and America is the west, China, for the situation is vastly ahead of many other countries in terms of growing infrastructure. But as the top comment says, yes China needs resources and Africa has them and needs in some capacity assistance to help build an economy and infrastructure, besides Africa is fucking huge, way bigger than the US, so there is a shitload of potential.",
"Resources and building good relations for future military bases/strategic positioning/favors.",
"Tldr; Africa is becoming China's China.",
"It is said to be a growing market in the next decade. Invest pennies now, and gain billions later. ",
"Mostly they are securing access to raw materials. The infrastructure investments are usually in exporting corridors, or if not directly related, it is involved in government deals that drives supplier countries into China's sphere of influence. They are also providing no strings attached financing, which is useful for shady governments.",
"China has been spending a lot of money to make long term investments in a lot of countries, and not just in Africa. Most of these agreements appear to be an exchange of infrastructure investments for raw materials. This fits well with China's trading policy before its decline in the 19th century; China would produce manufactured goods in exchange for raw materials while being rather agnostic on who they traded with. The question is whether the current Chinese leadership will maintain this traditional view.",
"China tells African nations that they dont care about how their countries are ran, they just want there resources and would gladly build roads hospitals or ship in Bentleys to some corrupt general dictator. No human rights inspection crap from China. just resources and they will build roads ect, sounds better than the US pyramid scheme we call the World Bank. Not to mentioned our policy extortion or war deals ex. Panama and Iraq.",
"Same reason the Europeans did so 100 years prior: natural resources",
"The Chinese are brilliant. What most of you are failing to see is that China is not only helping them to build infrastructure just for the resources, they are trying to build a new market.\n\nSimilar to what Ford did with his employees, gave them a decent enough wage so that they could buy his cars.\n\nChina is and always will be an exporter, they need customers, the more, the merrier....and Africa is literally, the final frontier.",
"Uhhh.... South African here. Why am I not aware of this?",
"Why don't you go read some scholarly articles instead of asking a bunch of Jack offs who don't know shit? Intellectually lazy.",
"Watch this TED Idea and think about it. China is doing what the western countries never managed to do. Not everything they do is just \"bad\".\n\n_URL_0_"
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18bqrs | if you were to levitate in place for 12 hours by some means, would you end up on the other side of the earth? | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/18bqrs/eli5_if_you_were_to_levitate_in_place_for_12/ | {
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"That's going to depend on just how your levitation device works; saying \"by some means\" makes the question impossible to answer, because the means by which you're levitating is going to determine whether you stay fixed above one spot or stay fixed relative to Earth's center.",
"The air around the Earth is moving along with it, and if you levitated, you would be suspended in this fluid (air).\n\nThink about an air freshener in a car:\n\nOnce the car is on the highway *and not accelerating* , the freshener hangs from the mirror, it is not being pulled to the back of the car. This is because the air in the car is moving forward at the same rate as the car, and thus pushes the air freshener forward too. \n\nEDIT: I was unclear, by \"Once the car is on the highway\" I meant \"moving at a constant speed with 0 assumed acceleration\". Also, it depends on the method in which the person is being levitated. If you assume gravity disappears, the person would fly gradually off into space, no longer kept in \"orbit\" by centripetal forces created by gravity. They would continue along a trajectory tangent to the Earth's orbit If the levitation is merely an equal reaction in the opposite direction of gravity, a person would be affixed to a point in the atmosphere, in something you could almost call an orbit. ",
"Okay, so let's say you're sitting in a train, and in the middle of the train car there is a ball, floating in the air. You look at that ball, and it's sitting there perfectly still. So you might say, \"that ball is levitating in place!\" After you've been in the train for twelve hours, the ball would still be floating there, not having moved an inch.\n\nNow, your brother isn't on the train at all. He's standing on a road, next to a train crossing, and he sees your train go by. So you wave at him and point at the ball, shouting \"Look, that ball there is just levitating in place, isn't that AMAZING?!\" But your brother shouts back \"It's not levitating in place at all, it's going away from me, just like the train!\"\n\nYou say the ball is staying in place, and your brother says it isn't.. who is right? Well, both of you are just telling what you see, so actually both of you are. It turns out that the answer to questions like \"is that thing staying in place?\" or \"is that thing moving?\" depends on the person that is asking the question.\n\nSo, a person who went from one side of the earth to the other in 12 hours, is he levitating in place or not? Well, someone who was standing next to him when he started might say \"he suddenly lifted into the sky then started moving really really fast in *that* direction\". But someone who was watching from space with a large telescope might say \"first he was moving along with the earth like everyone else, but then suddenly he lifted into the sky, and just stopped moving at all, with the earth continuing to turn under him.\" To the first person, it looked like the earth was standing still and the dude was moving really fast. But to the other person it looked like the dude was standing still and the earth was turning.\n\nIn conclusion, the answer to \"If you were to levitate in place for 12 hours by some means, would you end up on the other side of the Earth?\" Depends on where you are (and how fast you're going) when you ask the question.\n\nIf you really want to blow the kid's mind, here's a little bit of a different, but also very interesting question: \"If you were to levitate in place for 12 hours, where would you end up?\" If you think really hard about everything I just said, you might realize you can answer *anything* you like to that question, and I can put you in a place, moving at some speed, where your answer is correct (As long as it doesn't make anyone travel faster than `c`, but explaining the speed of light is constant to a 5yo is too much for me to handle)",
"When you are lifted off the earth, you retain your angular momentum, so you'll stay above the same location until some force acts on you to push you in some other direction.\n\nThis means that no, you won't.\n\nIf you were to say 'Well, how about if I were instantly made to not retain any angular momentum' we would have to start asking 'in relation to what?'\n\nIf you said 'the earth', then you would be left out in space as the earth spun around the sun, leaving you behind. If you said 'in relation to earth's spin only', then yes.\n\nBut the important thing here is to somehow have the angular momentum removed from you, not the levitation.",
"by levitating you obviously mean JUST ignoring the friction between you and the floor. well if we are exact, the next thing which has to be taken into account is air friction, which makes you highly depending on wheather condition.\n\nin other words: since gravity is only depending on radius, and friction is ignored, you would indeed be decoupled from earth rotation. you would end up somewhere else but not on the other end of the world.",
"Sir Isaac Newton did a great job of ELI5 in 1687: \"Every body persists in its state of being at rest or of moving uniformly straight forward, except insofar as it is compelled to change its state by force impressed.\"",
"The Earth is rotating at ~1,000 miles per hour. \nThat is ~16.66 miles per minute. \nThat is ~0.27 miles per second.\n\nIf you jump straight up, and land 1 second later, are you now 0.27 miles from where you jumped?",
"Would this happen if you levitated in a big house or something? No, of course not. The house would move with the world, air in the house would move with the house, and you would move with the air. You wouldn't end up crashing through the side of your house just because you weren't touching the ground.\n\nNow take this outside. The air would move with the world, and you would move in the air. You wouldn't stay perfectly in place because the air doesn't move *perfectly* with the world. That's what wind is. So the wind would blow you around. But it wouldn't blow you halfway around the world in 12 hours.\n\nLevitating is really just like being a speck of dust or a balloon full of helium. You can easily see what effects the air environment has on these things.",
"No, your angular momentum would be conserved and you would keep rotating with the earth."
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1kogps | why does reddit fuzz votes? i know it is an anti-spam measure, but how does it help? | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/1kogps/eli5_why_does_reddit_fuzz_votes_i_know_it_is_an/ | {
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"If you have a spam bot and yo'ure going around upvoting and downvoting things it's impossible to know if your upvote was matched by a real person downvoting, or if you've been banned from reddit and your vote isn't actually doing anything. The value in you not knowing if your span bot is working or not is that you won't take the time to make a better one if you think this one is working, and the time spent running a banned bot is time that reddit gets one fewer spamer.",
"It helps because reddit has a shadow-banning system which is able to secretly ban accounts from having their posts/comments published to everyone else without telling the user who owns the account that they have been banned. The other key thing is that up-votes and down-votes don't count from these shadow-banned accounts (as far as I know).\n\nSo, spammers will open up tons of different accounts and use them to up-vote certain posts (attempting to manipulate vote counts). However, with the shadow-banning system in effect, they aren't notified when their accounts have been banned/disabled, so they may pointlessly be trying to up-vote posts using accounts where they don't actually have any voting power.\n\nThe problem is that spammers could simply figure out whether their votes are counting by tracking the up-vote or down-vote counts for the post in relation to votes made by the spammer's account. This is where vote fuzzing comes in. By fuzzing the vote counts, it makes it much more difficult for spammers to figure out whether their votes are actually counting, so the spammers may continue to try manipulating votes using accounts that have no power to influence vote counts."
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3q2mpx | what is "high fashion" and why does it often look almost nothing like clothing people wear? | I've seen a few fashion shows - the garb seems more like crazy modern art than clothing, and I've never seen anything like those items at a store. | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/3q2mpx/eli5_what_is_high_fashion_and_why_does_it_often/ | {
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"Think of it as an exaggerated signal of the direction of trends. The fashion designers working on fashion lines that will end up in mass production will take cues from the high fashion in less drastic changes to their lines. So for example, it has been fashionable for men to have flat front pants for several years. Recently high fashion has had shown some pleated pants on the runway. Now the pants at the fashion shows seem exaggerated to the common eye, big and baggy around the hips with large pleats. But that can be taken a signal that pleats may be ready to reappear in the mainstream. Similar changes happen for example in colors. High fashion may signal that a new shade or tone of color is ready to trend which may pick up in mass produced lines the coming season. ",
"Because it's not supposed to, *haute couture* is intended to communicate the designers ideas in an extreme memorable way. Later they'll design ready-to-wear collections that will be more like what buyers are actually buying. \n\nAn example of how couture ideas become clothes can be seen [here](_URL_0_). An extreme version on the left shows that the designer is thinking asymmetric silhouette, floral patterns, and a long slit which were preserved in the ready to wear garment and the ideas were much more muted in the diffusion collection (which is what many more people will wear). Versus is a higher volume brand than Versace. ",
"The way it was explained to me in layman' terms, was that designers use as many of their concepts as they can in the allotted time. While the overall outfit is outrageous some of the designs will be mimicked. Imagine a world where everyone wore only t-shirts. Then during a fashion show someone shows an outfit that is half leather, half fur, has a collar, flashing lights and giant wings. Most of it would be deemed outrageous, but looking at each piece separately someone might say, \"hey, I like that collar thing\". The that person goes on to make a polo shirt. It's not about the overall crazy design, it's about the piece parts.",
"It's basically made as art. The designer can go off the rails and do whatever, but at the same time trying to show buyers and the public what direction he she is going to take the brand in. Some brands, like [Maison Margiela!](_URL_0_), only do couture type clothes, other's mix and do couture and what's called pret a porter, or ready to wear. However the line between the two have been mixed, some designers throw in very un-wearable clothes in their ready to wear, but make simple dresses for couture.\nThere are also strict rules regulating which fashion brands can release couture lines.\n To earn the right to call itself a couture house and to use the term haute couture in its advertising and any other way, members of the Chambre syndicale de la haute couture must follow specific rules; they must:\n\ndesign made-to-order for private clients, with one or more fittings;\nhave a workshop (atelier) in Paris that employs at least fifteen staff members full-time;\nhave at least twenty full-time technical people, in at least one workshop (atelier); and\npresent a collection of at least fifty original designs to the public every fashion season (twice, in January and July of each year), of both day and evening garments.\n\nMost of the money for fashion brands is in the sales of accessories (bags, belts, umbrellas,) perfume and make up. The mark up on a Dior lipstick is astronomical. Aspirational marketing is huge in fashion.",
"It may help to think of it as art.\n\nArtist paint pictures or make statues or any of hundreds forms of arts, but the things like them we use in every day life tend to be more practical.\n\nEngineers build things and designers might add touches of design to them, but they amount artistic expression you can do with something that is still supposed to do its primary job is limited.\n\nWith cars for example you often see prototypes and concept cars that look far wilder and impractical than anything that actually gets built, but design ideas do end up in the final design.\n\nSimilarly high fashion is supposed to be about art more than practical consideration but small bits of it may end up in every day fashion."
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klnen | why when i eat spicy food my poop turns into water. | It's not even all spicy foods, (Indian food seems to do nothing to me) but when it does, my god, those are the most painful, and liquid, poops ever. Why does this happen? | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/klnen/elif_why_when_i_eat_spicy_food_my_poop_turns_into/ | {
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"You lower intestine removes water from your poop before you poop it out. This is to prevent you from becoming too thirsty. If your intestine doesn't like what you've eaten (For example if it's hot and painful to your intestine.) your lower intestine will push it out faster. This will make it have alot more water in it and not be solid. This also what your body will do if the food is poisonous or will make sick.\n\nYou can solve this problem by ether eating something that can help to stop the hotness (Yogurt works for example.) or eat something like fiber that can produce enough extra poop to that the hot food doesn't seem that bad.",
"Turning poop into water was one of Jesus' less popular miracles.",
"They're not even liquid poops. They're just ass-piss.",
"I believe this is what Johnny Cash was singing about in his song \"Ring of Fire\".\n\nReferences to \"love\" in the song are just a euphemism for the Habanero squirts.",
"Because you touch yourself at night",
"You lower intestine removes water from your poop before you poop it out. This is to prevent you from becoming too thirsty. If your intestine doesn't like what you've eaten (For example if it's hot and painful to your intestine.) your lower intestine will push it out faster. This will make it have alot more water in it and not be solid. This also what your body will do if the food is poisonous or will make sick.\n\nYou can solve this problem by ether eating something that can help to stop the hotness (Yogurt works for example.) or eat something like fiber that can produce enough extra poop to that the hot food doesn't seem that bad.",
"Turning poop into water was one of Jesus' less popular miracles.",
"They're not even liquid poops. They're just ass-piss.",
"I believe this is what Johnny Cash was singing about in his song \"Ring of Fire\".\n\nReferences to \"love\" in the song are just a euphemism for the Habanero squirts.",
"Because you touch yourself at night"
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1re5ap | how can my german shepherd be just as happy in the 0 degree weather outside as in the 75 degree inside? | I know she has a double coat but how is she not dying when she comes inside the warm house? | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/1re5ap/eli5_how_can_my_german_shepherd_be_just_as_happy/ | {
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"Dogs can regulate their body temperature way better than humans."
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8r70xc | if lighter colors reflect more light, why is light skin better at producing vitamin d than darker skin? | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/8r70xc/eli5_if_lighter_colors_reflect_more_light_why_is/ | {
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"According to a study done and anthropological study done by Nina Jablonski, she comes to the conclusion that lighter skin is more succeptiable to sun damage, particularly from UVB radiation from living at higher altitudes. Due to the uneven spread of sunlight over generations, fairer skinned humans developed higher Vitamin D production rates in order to help defend against harmful effects due to radiation exposure.\n\nThose humans who lived in the south, near the equator and experienced more frequent and constant sun exposure at high levels subsequently developed darker skin tones which allowed for a more natural, physical barrier from sun exposure.\n\nTL;DR - lighter skin = weaker defense from UVB; increase Vitamin D production to compensate. Darker skin = stronger defense from UVB; less Vitamin D needed to combat damaging effects.",
"Light skin has less pigment within it which absorbs light. By having less pigment the light skin allows the light to penetrate and catalyze the production of vitamin D. It isn't just about which skin absorbs the most light, but about which skin allows the most light through.",
"I think the other answers overlook the mechanism. The important hing is that only inside living cells are chemicals converted into Vitamin D. Under the dead layers of skin. \n\nMore and more melanin is like putting more and more paint over a solar power panel. Use enough and the panel doesn't work. (i.e. Vitamin D does not get made sown in the living skin cells.)\n\nAs far as skin lightness/darkness goes, the evolution has been figured out. The balance between 2 disease states:\n\nDark skin is advantageous n areas with lots of light. In these area the light breaks down folic acid in pregnant females and results in spina bifita. Not getting sunburned is a bonus.\n\nLighter skin is advantageous when there is less light. Because less light means less Vitamin D is getting made, and your kids get rickets if they don't get enough.\n\nAn trivially interesting think - Eskimos have dark skin in an arctic climate because their natural diet of aquatic animals was so rich in Vitamin D there is no real danger of Vitamin D deficiency while eating it."
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5rh4x0 | why do you sometimes feel a big lump in your chest when you eat something heavy like bread or rice quickly? | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/5rh4x0/eli5_why_do_you_sometimes_feel_a_big_lump_in_your/ | {
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"When you finish chewing a mouthful of food and swallow, the chewed food forms a ball-like \"bolus\" that needs to travel to your stomach. To do so, it has to go down your tube-like esophagus. \n\nThe esophagus has muscles lining it that pinch and push the bolus down towards the stomach. Think of it like pinching a straw and moving your fingers up and down to transport something in the straw. This is why it's possible to swallow water even when you are upside down.\n\nYour esophagus is normally lined with mucus to make it nice and slippery for the bolus to slide along. If you quickly eat bread or rice and swallow, the bolus can be very dry and large. The dryness can absorb the mucus, making it difficult to push downwards. The size also makes it harder for the esophagus to push everything down. The lump you feel is actually the bolus stuck in part of your esophagus that can't move unless you force something else down (water). Luckily, it's stuck after the split between your breathing and eating paths so it shouldn't impact your breathing. When this happens to me, I usually get hiccups!"
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32dzoy | why does water not enter my nostrils when i go into the pool? | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/32dzoy/eli5_why_does_water_not_enter_my_nostrils_when_i/ | {
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"It's sorta like holding the top of a straw when you put the other end in a drink. The air that's there can't go anywhere, so the liquid can't enter. \n\nThat, and I'm always holding my nose shut underwater. "
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1ujlkq | why do some english-speakers pronounce the letter 'r' like a 'w'? | Edit: Thanks for the responses - enjoyed reading all of the stories that were posted, and thanks to /u/Jontster, /u/Kseeg, /u/bks33691 & /u/maleslp for explaining this to me | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/1ujlkq/eli5_why_do_some_englishspeakers_pronounce_the/ | {
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"I did this when I was little, I never properly articulated and the muscles in my mouth did not develop as a consequence. A couple years of daily speech therapy in grade school sorted that out.\n\nI guess I also didn't know how to actually say 'R' words. My mom encouraged me to baby talk and I think that had a lot to do with it too.",
"The formal name for this is [Rhotacism](_URL_0_). It occurs in lots of languages, not just English, but in the opposite way (e.g other letters will turn into r's). In English, it causes the 'r' sound to become more like a 'w'. \n\nThere are some theories as to why it occurs (stress-related, shyness), but in most cases there is no obvious cause.",
"Related story: My son, who was 3yo at the time, was in pre-k. We all know this a developmental time for children. Well, his teacher talked like that. He ended up talking like that. It took us a few years to fix it. \n Does anybody else think that people with this \"problem\" shouldn't be teaching developing minds?",
"My brother has speech apraxia, which basically means a part of his brain that has to do with motor control didn't develop completely. He has had to speech therapy for an hour once a week for the past 14 years. To this day he still pronounces his r's like w's. The problem exists for him because he simply doesn't understand how to make his tongue move to make the 'r' sound. It is a difficult sound to make, but for people who have mastered it, it doesn't seem like it.",
"I only realized after clicking into this thread that you were talking about the speech impediment. Some British accents do this too... Welsh?",
"Hi. Speech-Language Pathologist here. I believe what OP is referring to is called a speech sound disorder. It's one of the more common \"articulation\" disorders found in children when they're developing their sound systems. What (I think) OP is referring to is technically called \"gliding,\" as both [r] and [w] sounds are considered liquids and glides, respectively. The [r] sound (a liquid) is substituted for a glide (the [w] sound), hence the name. [Here](_URL_1_) is a quick rundown on what liquids and glides are (and nasals too if anyone wants extra-credit).\n\nThere are a lot of theories, but essentially we don't really know what causes these sorts of disorders. Many believe it's a neurological \"cross-wiring\" when the sounds are developing in children's brains, others believe it's bad habit, and some would attribute it to other things such as hearing difficulty (if you can't hear the sound well, it's hard to produce - think of a deaf person speaking) or other disorders such as autism spectrum disorders.\n\n[Here](_URL_0_) is a quick guide to speech sound disorders from ASHA, the American Speech-Language Hearing Association for an official, non-ELI5 guide.\n\nEDIT: Just to be clear - if a child has a speech-sound disorder it DOES NOT mean that they have a hearing loss or autism. Often, if a child DOES have a hearing loss or some other type of disorder, a speech-sound disorder can also be found in the child. That is also why when I (or any speech-pathologist should, really) am performing an initial diagnostic on a child, I will make sure hearing is OK and do a family interview for any other speech/language related disorders in the family history (among other things which I won't go into here). It could be a symptom of a larger problem, but it may be isolated - you always want to check.\n\nEDIT 2: Thanks for the gold! I'm no longer a gold virgin! Now, what the heck do I do with this new gilded status?!",
"I am a graduate student studying speech-language pathology, this is called gliding and can occur for a variety of reasons. Most speech errors are not caused by a lack of muscle tone or being stressed/shy, contrary to popular belief. Usually it's just because the correct placement was never learned and speech therapy will teach correct placement and then will include a lot of practice so that the new placement becomes second nature during speech like it is for the rest of us. This particular speech error is extremely common, especially for boys, since r is one of the hardest sounds in our language. In typical developing children, it can take up until the age of 8 to start producing r correctly. Hope this clears things up!",
"I had this aswell. I went to speech therapy for about a year and it went away. I never knew I had it because to me it sounded like I could say my R's ",
"I was in speech therapy for six or seven years trying to correct this (and strangely, pronouncing a normally occurring \"w\" with a \"z.\" Before five or six, I'd pronounce water as \"zaw-tah.\")\n\nI remember being tired of speech therapy in fourth grade and going to be my sessions and being a total dick. The pathologist would ask me questions to try and get me to practice using \"r\" in everyday speech, and I would make a conscious effort to not use it at all (\"I see you have a new shirt. What color is it?\" \"I'd say it's a deep pink.\" \"Would you say it's a red?\" \"I don't believe I would, no.\" \"Now I'm asking you to say that it is red.\" \"I will politely decline. I like to call it deep pink.)",
"I did two years of phonetics at university so I think I can answer clearly, however not so concisely. Sorry!\n\nIf you would go ahead and pronounce the letter \"R\" now you will probably be spreading the back of your tongue so that it's touching your molars. The front of your tongue will be pointing upwards and be very close to the area of your mouth's roof where you would normally articulate the letter \"t\", this area is called the alveolar ridge.\n\nNow try having a go at pronouncing the letter \"r\" without moving your lips. It's just not the same. What we do in the English language to the letter \"r\" is something called labialisation which means we round our lips when pronouncing the sound. Just as we would when pronouncing the letter \"w\".\n\nNow understanding why people pronounce an \"R\" as a \"W\" can have multiple different reasons:\n\n - Second language English speakers do not have the \"R\" sound in their native language so they learn to articulate wrongly as they can't see how it is articulated past the lips.\n\n - Some people who have lisps were there isn't enough tongue thrust may often not be able to get there tongue to reach the alveolar ridge, because of this the labialisation of the lips causes a \"w\" sound.\n\n - Some children learn how to pronounce sounds by simply seeing mouth movement. The \"r\" sound is quite a rare sound in terms of language and is a strange one to articulate correctly. If a child only learns to articulate the labialisation part of the \"r\" sound, it is hard to get out of this habit as an adult. Without being corrected from a young age or without speech therapy, the habit of pronouncing \"R\" as \"W\" sticks throughout adulthood.",
"Is this like what Barry Cripke has ? (Behwee Kwipkee)",
"My little sister had this issue as a child, as a result of a hearing defect that kept her from hearing normally till she was about three. The weird thing with her, though, if that she took nine years of speech therapy, which ended when the therapist informed my parents she spoke completely normal during therapy sessions, but somehow was not able to apply it to daily life. She is now 22, and still speaks like this, and is otherwise completely normal.\n\nThe worst part? Her name is Sarah. ",
"As a child I couldn't make the 'r' sound. I didn't start actually speaking until the age of 3 or 4 so the development of my speech was delayed a little. I always knew I wasn't making the right sound, but I didn't know how to correct it. The 'w' sound was closest I could get to an 'r'. It wasn't until I had a speech teacher who actually showed me with diagrams and models how to position everything that I was able to make an 'r' sound for the first time. Up until 3rd or 4th grade, I couldn't even say my own name right because it had an r in it.",
"I have no formal education in this area, however I had this speech impediment when I was much younger, and went to a speech therapist for this and another issue I had. \n\nThe way I had understood it, it comes from having a hearing issue to some degree, and when you are younger you develop your speech directly from what you hear. As you start forming words, if you hear it a certain way, you will say it that way.\n\nI apologize if I am bending some sub rules, however I firmly believe this to be the way that this impediment comes to fruition.",
"One of the hardest things to say out loud for me is \"Rail Road Tracks\". \n\n\"Whale Woad Twacks\"\n\nApparently it's \"cute\" by everybody's standards. To me it's just frustrating and embarrassing.",
"I was in speech therapy as a kid for what I remember being years. I probably had other speech issues but this was the biggest one. Now as an adult, I have no accent and kind of sound like a TV anchor...I occasionally slip and mess up my words when I'm tired or nervous. ",
"I believe that the R sound is actually really difficult to make. For other languages that don't have it English is a tough language to pick up because of it. Some people just don't fully develop the tongue motions for it. This all coming from my French teacher years ago, but I'm pretty sure he smoked meth so who knows.",
"I knew a girl that talked like that. She thought it was cute to talk like a baby.\n\nIt wasnt.\n\nBut I still had sex with her. Then I weft.",
"The response to mine pretty much nailed it! Young children have to be taught placement in creative ways but they understand. The biggest issue is that they do not usually hear that what they're saying is different/wrong so the first step is usually getting them to hear the difference! To avoid frustrating children the best way to correct an error is to repeat it back to them correctly without drawing anymore attention to it. Example: Child-\"look, there's a wed truck\" Adult-\"you see a red truck? That's awesome!\" No matter how difficult never repeat back the incorrect version because it reinforces it for the child. Very hard when the speech error happens to create very cute phrases haha",
"My little sister who's a sophomore in high school still pronounces things like \"exploded\" as \"uhh-sploded\" or \"ahh-sploded\".\n\nIt's not even worth pointing out to her. She acts like it didn't happen, as if she doesn't know what you're even talking about, or hostile as if you're trying to make fun of her."
]
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[],
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"http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rhotacism"
],
[],
[],
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"http://www.asha.org/public/speech/disorders/speechsounddisorders/",
"http://calleteach.wordpress.com/2010/01/10/sounds-of-english-nasals-liquids-glides/"
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1vdqu1 | how can i be watching a movie from the 1970's in blu-ray? | I was watching Alien [1979] the other day on Blu-ray when I realized, how can this be better than HD quality? Wasn't it filmed before 1979 when HD cameras didn't exist? It still looked good, but is it worth buying over a DVD version? I feel like there had to be a quality cap at the time of filming. | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/1vdqu1/eli5_how_can_i_be_watching_a_movie_from_the_1970s/ | {
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"Old movies were filmed on actual film, which is far higher resolution even than HD. A huge amount of resolution is lost when you down-convert film to any commercial digital format. \n\nTo put Alien on Blu-ray they just had to go back to the original film, or an intermediate high-resolution scan that they might have used when originally making the DVD.",
"It was filmed in HD, so to speak. Alien was filmed on 35mm high quality film, which is better than 1080p. The crappy VCR or early DVD versions are probably not full resolution, and have probably been copied using analogue means several time, losing quality. The blu ray version is probably a high quality generation 2 rip from the film.",
"Celluloid film actually records at higher detail than HD and has since like the 30's. Celluloid film isn't practical, however, for home use, so we have to use digital substitutes, which don't quite record all the detail. It's the same reason why super audiophiles prefer vinyl to CDs. Vinyl contains more information even though it's older. CDs are just more generally practical. ",
"Old 35mm movies had a resolution *way* bigger than what Blu-ray.\n\nRemember, these movies where made to be shown on *really* huge cinema size screens that could be 30 meter or more across.\n\nIf you put up a Blu-ray on that big a screen it wouldn't look good."
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6j2yxn | why is sears holding doing so poorly and about to die? | Here in SoCal, their stores seem to be doing fairly well. However, it seems that every other week I'm hearing of their impending demise. Any explanation why? | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/6j2yxn/eli5_why_is_sears_holding_doing_so_poorly_and/ | {
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"The simple answer is more and more people are preferring online shopping to brick and mortar stores. Other businesses have already been doing that for years, and they do it better than the ones who are struggling to catch up. Add that to the fact that as far as retail chains go, Sears is a pretty niche market whose niche (homeowners) is growing smaller every year. Time will tell whether or not they actually fold, but I expect significant downsizing at least.",
"Such as the recent bankruptcy of Sears Canada for example?\n\nProbably the number one contributor to Sear's demise would be Eddie Lampert. He is the investment shark who bought the dying KMart in 2005 - which had considerable stock in Sears, which he used to wrest control of Sears properly. Since then he's done nothing but use the assets of the company to maximize his own gains, and done nothing to roll any of those gains into renewing or revitalizing any of the stores, brands etc. \n\nFor example, he sold Craftsman tools - arguably one of the best brands in America. Good quality, lifetime warranty. For $900M.\n\nThis guy is probably one of the best examples of a Gordon Gekko style investor: buy it, squeeze it, leverage it, strip it, sell the carcass. As opposed to Warren Buffett style investors who buy it, nurture it, care, feed and water it and make money off long term value gain and dividends.",
"Sears stores are almost all based in malls, which have had declining traffic for years. Their stores have not really been revamped in forever, and their internal IT systems are horrible. The shopping experience is just unpleasant compared to other big box retailers.\n\nOn top of that add bad management and poor financial decisions."
]
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5cdnjj | what do we know about gravity waves? and what can hope to accomplish should we master harnessing it and manipulating it? | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/5cdnjj/eli5_what_do_we_know_about_gravity_waves_and_what/ | {
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"\nGravity is the weakest of all forces. It takes something the size of the earth, 6 trillion trillion kilograms, just to exert 180 lbs of force on my body. \n\nSo it's difficult to imagine engineering applications for such a small force. Especially when it isn't understood at the quantum level yet.\n \n",
"The most immediate use is observing things we where not able to observe before due to limitations with methods that rely on light, like telescopes or on recieving radio waves. The waves pass by massive clusters of dust and massive objects unobstructed. This could let us in on phenomenon we where unable to see in the past. \n\nIt also gives us more insight on how gravity in general functions, but there is no telling what that could bring. "
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53gv3z | how big of a space telescope in relation to the jwst would we need to take surface images of the exo-planet proxima centauri b that are comparable to pictures we have of jupiter etc. | ^ | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/53gv3z/eli5_how_big_of_a_space_telescope_in_relation_to/ | {
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"Well, the camera on Juno has a resolution of 15 km per pixel.\n\n_URL_0_\n\nIn order to get the same resolution for proxima Centauri B (4.2 lightyears away), we need an angular resolution of x = 3.78×10^-13 radians.\n\nFor comparison, the James Webb Telescope has an angular resolution of 4.85×10^-7 radians.\n\nNow the size of the telescope, assuming we want to see in visible light, it would need to be approximately 2000 km in diameter.",
"The angular resolution R (in radians) of a telescope can be calculate as R=λ/D, where λ is the wavelength and D is the diameter of the objective (or the primary mirror, in the case of a mirror telescope). Visible light has a wavelength of up to about 800 nm, and a linear resolution of 100 km (enough to broadly make out surface features) at 4 lightyears corresponds to an angular resolution of about 2.6\\*10^-12 radians. Rearranging the formula as D=λ/R, and putting in the values, gives a mirror diameter of a bit over 307 km.\n\nThis is not feasible to build."
]
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1pofq7 | why do i need a strong password? why can't i just use whatever password i like and take on the responsibility if my account is broken in to? | Some sites that I use I couldn't care less if broke in to my account (wolframalpha for instance). Yet all these sites have absurd password restrictions. Sometimes it seems that the more I don't care about the password, the more restrictions it has. For instance my university has a requirement that if your password is under 16 characters, it needs an uppercase letter, a number, a symbol, it can't start with a number, and it can't have obvious sequences of letters (vwxyz, qwerty). WHY CAN'T I JUST PICK MY OWN??? Does it really make it that much more secure?
Clarification: I understand why a hard-to-crack password is a good idea. But why not give me the option to make my own hard-to-crack password instead of forcing the same restrictions on everyone (potentially making a password easier to crack as pointed out by /u/Tribler) | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/1pofq7/eli5_why_do_i_need_a_strong_password_why_cant_i/ | {
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"For a lot of places, getting hacked into isn't just going to affect YOU, it's going to affect other people as well. Basically any account that has email addresses or information or anything could potentially affect all sorts of users, not just yourself.",
"Firstly why do sites force you to have strong passwords? Because of lawyers. You may decide that the security of a particular account is not that important to you, but many other users will not share that point of view.\n\nThus a site which does not take reasonable measures to ensure security faces the prospect of at least severe reputational/brand damage with current and potential users if there is a massive breach of user accounts (step up Adobe this week for example).\n\nNext up the scale of hurt is if the site stores personally identifiable information (PII) which might be used for identity theft or other fraud. At the very least the site operator would have to pay for the affected users to be enrolled in some identity theft monitoring/assistance service at cost. \n\nThird up, if it is sensitive PII (as defined by local data protection laws, e.g. health information, political views, racial/disability data, etc.) then the operator would face fines in the hundreds of K or millions depending on the breach. (Usually bigger fines for sensitive PII, but fines are also possible for non sensitive PII).\n\nFourth up if there is actual loss, then the affected users may sue for compensation and that could be more than the fines depending on the type of breach.\n\nNow you may say that you would be happy to sign away those rights, but some of them (usually pertaining to PII and financial information) are written in to the relevant laws or regulations in such a way as to make that impossible (for your own protection). Also, even if it is legally possible for you to sign those rights away, the courts would often take the view that the balance of power in the relationship is with the site operator and would strike any such provisions out of the agreement if it came to trial. Thus the site operator is facing a risk that they would not sensibly take if they listen to their lawyers.\n\nIt is not surprising that many high profile breaches occur with popular start-up sites in their early days, since they are often run by 12 year olds with millions of someone else's cash to squander, little experience and plenty of hubris. Normally they clean up their act when they have their first major breach and see the prospect of their IPO receding over the horizon.\n\nSecondly, why are long/complex passwords needed? First of all it is important to understand that most hacks are not aimed at a specific individual's account. It is a numbers game and the hackers are looking for the best payoff in terms of time/effort vs. total number of accounts cracked.\n\nSo if you have some people with simple/8 character passwords and others with complex/10 character passwords in the same system, guess which accounts will be the first to be cracked? The only mitigation for this is to make everybody's account meet some minimum standard in terms of difficulty to crack. This will greatly reduce the final number of accounts cracked due to the time and effort required per password.\n\nThe second factor is how these accounts are cracked. Passwords are not stored in plain text by the site (well sometimes they are, and those site operators are very dumb and generally get some or all of the consequences outline above). The password is put through a mathematical process called 'hashing' which basically converts the password from plain text to a different set of characters and numbers.\n\nThe point is that hashing is supposed to be a one way process, i.e. if you put the same password in to your hashing routine, the same hash will come out the other end every time. Conversely a good hashing routine makes it somewhere between very hard and practically impossible to reverse the process and go from the hash back to the original password. When you log in to a site, all it does is hash the password you enter and compare the hash with the one stored in the database to see if it is the same. Security may be further enhanced by 'salting' the hashes, i.e. adding some secret sauce numbers to the hashing process that make the hashes more secure even if you know the hashing routine in use.\n\nThat is also how hackers crack passwords. Usually they will steal a copy of or gain access to the database containing the password hashes. They will then figure out what hashing process the site is using (there are a few commonly used routines and hackers can usually figure out which one is being used even if they don't have access to the site's source code). They will then start feeding passwords in to the same hash routine and compare results with the database until they find matches. This is where the numbers game comes in; the longer they run their cracking software, and the more computing horsepower they have access to, the more passwords will be cracked. Eventually they stop when they have enough for whatever purpose they have in mind.\n\nSo why do long/complex passwords help this process:\n\n- Firstly some older hashing routines are mathematically and/or computationally weak. People have either figured out ways to reverse the hashing process some time after the routine was created, or computing horsepower has reached a point where brute-force cracking is now feasible in hours or days where in years gone by it would have taken weeks, months or years.\n\n- Secondly for some hashing routines used with short (usually 8 character or less) passwords, the hackers can pre-calculate 'rainbow tables' which basically pre-calculate all or many of the possible hashes and allow them to rapidly reverse the hashes with little computation time.\n\n- Thirdly, the software used by hackers will have a vast range of 'dictionary' rules of commonly used passwords that allow the hackers to crack many of the hashes early on. These literally used to be dictionaries of everyday words (in every language you can imagine). As time has gone on, these guys have built databases of non-dictionary words that have been found in previously cracked databases. They also know the common ways passwords are constructed and apply all sorts of substitution rules against the dictionaries. For example \"take a word and try every combination of 1, 2 and 3 digit numbers at the end\" (because you've never changed your password from \"myPassw0rd1\" to \"myPasw0rd2\" have you?) All the common substitutions of letters and numbers, dropping vowels, etc. and even the patterns by which people capitalise passwords are known and used.\n\nUltimately the only defence is to make every user have a password that is computationally hard to crack. That means that every password must have sufficient characters and must contain characters from as large a set as possible. Both these factors increase the computation time required to crack each password massively. Ten years ago an eight character password with letters and numbers would have been pretty secure (unless you had an NSA supercomputer or two handy), these days anyone can rent a few Amazon instances and crack 80-90% of the passwords in a moderately large database in a few days.\n\nAt the current state of the art, a ten character password with numbers, letters and symbols is reasonably secure (again not including government actors in this, just your everyday criminals). Remember though this is a numbers game. A hacker will still crack some percentage of those passwords, but it would be far fewer than an eight character password due to the amount of computation time required.\n\nIn a few years we will probably have to move away from passwords altogether as secure ones will become impractically long to remember.\n\nHope this helps; not a hacker by the way, work in IT security for a bunch of lawyers.",
"I work for an ISP and we inherited an email platform that's over 15 years old.\n\nLooking through the database at the passwords, I was shocked. First off, the passwords weren't encrypted but worse was the standard of the passwords. Hundreds matched the usernames, there were 50 with \"password123\", \"passw0rd\" or just \"password\", dozens set to \"letmein\", multitudes of \"monkey\", \"m0nkey\" and at least five \"hackme\" and thousands that were just a single word or even a string of numbers.\n\nWhat does this mean? it means hundreds upon hundreds of compromised accounts sending out spam, it means we need really incredibly strict spam filters (in and out) otherwise we get blacklisted. So at best, customers get bounce backs when their mail is falsely tagged as spam, at worst, nobody gets to send mail until the blacklist gets lifted.\n\nWe've undertaken a massive project to migrate all this from the ancient legacy platform to a new one which will, eventually, allow us to sort out most of these bad accounts.\n\nSo it's all a massive pain in the arse for you, me, every other user of this platform and anyone unfortunate to receive this spam just because somebody thought that \"banana\" was a suitable password."
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5gdnf7 | when scientists say that your dna can change based on outside influences, what does that mean and how does that work? | ELI5: when scientists say that your DNA can change based on outside influences, what does that mean and how does that work?
So for example, does my taste in certain foods, change my DNA? Does my interest in certain women change my DNA?
If I have unprotected sex, thats an outside influence right? So can that effect the changes in my DNA? | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/5gdnf7/eli5_when_scientists_say_that_your_dna_can_change/ | {
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"im guesssing a decent example could be viruses.\n\nhiv and other retroviruses inject dna/rna into the new host and change it, the virus dna will forever be within the hosts dna.",
"Well mutations happen for all kinds of reasons but I think you are thinking of epigenetics: an epigenetic trait is a \"stably heritable phenotype resulting from changes in a chromosome without alterations in the DNA sequence\" Epigenetic traits can he heritable. \n \nThere is some evidence for example that parental PTSD is being passed down to children but I think it's fair to say this is controversial. \n \n _URL_0_ \n\n_URL_1_",
"Depends on what kind of changes you're talking about. Viruses change your DNA. Radiation changes you DNA.\n\nThere is also what is known as \"epigenetic changes\" which doesn't change the letters of the DNA code but changes what parts are read/expressed. Things like diet and stress seem to influence epigenetic changes, andcan cause effects in the children and grandchildren of a person, such as mortality rates or diabetes in grandchildren of people who went through a severe famine _URL_0_\n\nThis does not mean that *anything* can influence your genes. "
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xruip | mars time | During a NASA press conference today scientist and engineers kept mapping out a mission timeline in reference to local or mars time. what is that? | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/xruip/eli5_mars_time/ | {
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"Mars spins slightly slower than the earth. A day on Mars is called a *Sol* and lasts 1^d 0^h 37^m 22.663^s , [NASA adjusts their timekeeping accordingly](_URL_0_)."
]
} | [] | [] | [
[
"http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Timekeeping_on_Mars"
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4zdcki | why do all ants bump their heads whenever they go opposite ways? | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/4zdcki/eli5_why_do_all_ants_bump_their_heads_whenever/ | {
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"They are tasting/smelling each other, to ensure that they are from the same group. If strangers show up, the ants don't want to let them into the group.",
"Do you mean when they are traveling in opposite directions and touch their antennae together? They're communicating. They aren't \"bumping their heads\" they are sharing information through touch and pheromones about the location of food or predators. Similar to how bees dance to communicate."
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75yb2u | why are pain meds like vicodin so much different from otc drugs like ibuprofen? | Why are stronger pain meds more likely to affect you mentally, and they have warnings against operating machinery, driving, etc, but things like ibuprofen and aspirin don't affect you the same way? Do all pain meds work the same way? Is Vicodin or codeine basically just like taking a ton of ibuprofen? | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/75yb2u/eli5why_are_pain_meds_like_vicodin_so_much/ | {
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"They affect different chemical receptors. \nVicodin, codiene, morphine and other opiods/opiates have an effect on dopamine production/receptors in the body which are also responsible for \"good\" feelings and can suppress the feelings of pain. Ibuprofen and other usually just effect dilation of blood vessels allowing for swelling to be reduced and the body to help start the healing process.\n\nVicodin and other pain meds usually have ibuprofen in them, but not the other way around."
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bnq1wq | why is it that when a camera films confetti or snowflakes falling, the quality decreases hugely? | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/bnq1wq/eli5_why_is_it_that_when_a_camera_films_confetti/ | {
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"[This Tom Scott video](_URL_0_) answers this exact question. \n\nBasically, it's about video compression. Video compression works by storing only (well, mostly) the changes between consecutive frames. If there's a lot of changes between frames, the video is hard to compress, so the compression must sacrifice the video quality.",
"Camera usually films as is, and then when the video is compressed (when you upload it to YouTube for example) you get these compression artifacts, which are the video player's way of filling blank spots on the image"
]
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3h3rna | why do our muscles hurt when we sleep on them weird? | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/3h3rna/eli5_why_do_our_muscles_hurt_when_we_sleep_on/ | {
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"Because you slept on them weird. They were forced to maintain a position they wouldn't normally maintain, for an extended period of time, with an unusual amount and distribution of weight. Your forearm wasn't meant to have the weight of your torso resting on it for 7-9 hours at a time, so when you do it your forearm basically tells you it hates you and that it's taking some time off."
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b5rnyd | how are roots able to break through asphalt roads ? | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/b5rnyd/eli5_how_are_roots_able_to_break_through_asphalt/ | {
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"moisture causes cracks which will disrupt soil under the material..if there is a root nearby water will make it grow...",
"The roots lift the asphalt as they grow beneath it. Depending on how big and heavy the asphalt slab is, it can lift the asphalt quite a bit before the asphalt collapses under its own weight.",
"Nature finds a way.\n\nTree roots are full of water channels. Water \"pressure\" (not sure why I did the air quotes, but hey) is very strong. Roots are very strong. They usually grow following the path of least resistance, and sometimes the asphalt is softer than the ground below."
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5fhqqj | the final fantasy video game series | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/5fhqqj/eli5_the_final_fantasy_video_game_series/ | {
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"No, they're not all connected. Most of them are standalone stories, in fact. There are a handful of paired games, where the setting and sometimes characters are the same, but for the most part they're independent of each other.\n\nI think that accounts for a lot of their success, actually. There's always a new story, new characters to get to know, and new game mechanics with (almost) every new release. This keeps the series from getting stale, though they do include some throwback Easter eggs in to keep the lifelong fans entertained even more.\n\nIncidentally, the reason it's called Final Fantasy is that this genre of game had pretty much tanked. Its creator named it Final Fantasy because he intended it to be the last of its kind produced by his studio, based on the market. The first game in the series turned out to be so wildly popular that he stayed in business and carried it on.",
"No, the stories are not connected. Every game in the main series is a sort of reboot with new characters and a new universe.\n\nSome have very different settings. The early ones are medieval style (although with a bit of Sci fi thrown in), then 7 was kind of cyber punk, X was sort of post apocalyptic, XIII was very Sci fi.\n\nThe gameplay can be really different too. The new one is action based where as most of the older ones had turn based style combat.\n\nThe thing that links them are common themes, recurring monsters and other creatures such as rideable birds called chocobos.\n\nSometimes they do make actual sequels, but they don't get a unique roman numeral. For example X had a sequel called X-2."
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25l8fh | how wrestlers can eat a ton of punches and not get knocked out but ufc fighters can get knocked out in a simple punch. | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/25l8fh/eli5_how_wrestlers_can_eat_a_ton_of_punches_and/ | {
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"Professional wrestling is staged. Think of it like a live stunt show. The punches pro wrestlers throw at each other are \"pulled\" punches, which means either the punch doesn't actually connect with the opponent, or the punch isn't really solid.\n\nFor a video example: _URL_0_"
]
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[
"https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=z5pFRq8WgN0"
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||
1ackkf | "organic" compounds? | Oblivious to Chemistry.
Edit; Thanks! | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/1ackkf/eli5_organic_compounds/ | {
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"Organic materials in a strictly chemical sense means: the molecules contain carbon (C) atoms.\n\nThere is some exception to this rule: generally CO2, diamond, graphene and a few others are considered inorganic (that's just the opposite). This has historic reasons and the distinction is a bit arbitrary, though the distinction is useful in chemistry.\n\n[edit] Oh, the reason it's called organic: all living things (that we know of) are made of molecules that contain carbon."
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1p3qib | how am i able to continue to sing a song, without being conscious i'm doing so, whilst being deep in thought about something else? | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/1p3qib/eli5_how_am_i_able_to_continue_to_sing_a_song/ | {
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"I'd assume it's because it's become muscle memory, in the same way as touch typing or any physical other activity works?\n\nI touch type, and I don't consciously think 'I want to press the c button, so I have to put my finger here, and then press.' I just think of what I want to write, without consciously willing my fingers to move.\n\n(IIRC how muscle memory works) The movements needed for you to create the sound have been stored, (as singing is using your throat muscles) as a single action, that can be implemented without much attention.\n"
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4m5bs8 | why can our bodies develop resistance to harsh viruses such as the flu, but poison ivy still plagues many of us each year? | If our bodies can develop antibodies and immunities to rapidly changing viruses such as the flu, why can't we quickly develop a tolerance to a basic plant such as poison ivy which has been around since before mankind? | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/4m5bs8/eli5_why_can_our_bodies_develop_resistance_to/ | {
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"Poison Ivy is harsh ironically because of the immune system's reaction, it actually is not harmful, the irritant in poison ivy is called Urushiol, an oil that acts as an allergen, it is basically safe, the body simply overreacts (this is why some people are immune to it, their immune systems react less toward it).\n\nOn the other hand, a virus is a somewhat living thing that reproduces using bodily resources and in the this process, it kills cells. You can die from a virus, while it is almost impossible to die from urushiol (only way I know is inhaling via burning gases, never burn poison ivy, or swallowing it, which causes inflammation in the throat and asphyxiation).\n\nAs pesky as urushiol is, selective pressures have not found it harmful enough to remove the body's allergic reaction to it.",
"Actually, the rash from poison ivy is an allergic reaction. In other words, the very immune system that should be protecting you is panicking about nothing. You cannot become immune because that attempt is what causes the problem in the first place. ",
"Poison Ivy, as indicated by the name, isn't a virus. Your reaction to poison ivy is an allergic/histamine reaction. The body's immune system is normally in the business of protecting us from bacteria, viruses, and other foreign invaders that can make us sick. But when urushiol from the poison ivy plant touches the skin, it instigates an immune response, called dermatitis, to what would otherwise be a harmless substance. Hay fever is another example of this type of response; in the case of hay fever, the immune system overreacts to pollen, or another plant-produced substance.\n\nHere's how the poison ivy response occurs. Urushiol makes its way down through the skin, where it is metabolized, or broken down. Immune cells called T lymphocytes (or T-cells) recognize the urushiol derivatives as a foreign substance, or antigen. They send out inflammatory signals called cytokines, which bring in white blood cells. Under orders from the cytokines, these white blood cells turn into macrophages. The macrophages eat foreign substances, but in doing so they also damage normal tissue, resulting in the skin inflammation that occurs with poison ivy. \n\n",
"Poison Ivy is not actually poisonous. The oily substance on it just happens to be something that causes an allergic reaction in nearly every person. There are those who don't react to poison Ivy at all. The substance is actually perfectly harmless to your skin. But just as with all allergies, that's not what your immune system thinks otherwise and reacts to it. We develop resistance to the flu because our body learns to fight it off. Allergies are our immune system working too well. Allergies can be helped though. Injecting a small highly diluted amount of substances you are allergic to helps to teach your immune system to not treat the substance like a threat. This is called immunotherapy. (I hope I shouldn't have to say that this should be performed by an allergist)\n\nThe same concept could theoretically be applied to poison Ivy. But the costs of immunotherapy outweigh the benefit. It's easier to just avoid the plant all together and deal with the one or two times in your life you get it, rather than stick yourself with a needle ever other day for the rest of your life just so you stop being allergic to it."
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4bfuis | what was y2k? | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/4bfuis/eli5_what_was_y2k/ | {
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"Y2K (or Year 2000) was a huge piece of scare mongering hype in 1999. The popular belief was the at midnight on new years eve all sorts of important computers would crash because they couldn't recognize the year 2000 as an actual date. In the end nothing happened and any systems that could have been effected were patched before there could be an issue.",
"This Eli5 makes me realize I'm getting very, very old. It's almost surreal that so many people alive now wouldn't know that!"
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7d6l5l | why do some people think it's beneficial to "alkalize" the body? | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/7d6l5l/eli5_why_do_some_people_think_its_beneficial_to/ | {
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"A sufficiently charismatic snake-oil salesman convinced them of it.\n\nMost people don't have much understanding of medicine, biology or science in general. If some huckster starts tossing around fancy sounding words, it's easy to convince them that he's right - especially if it's loosely connected to some actual facts.",
"I think a lot of people think being alkaline makes them feel better, when really it's just act of paying more attention to diet and potentially breathing techniques that do the trick. While there may not be a ton of scientific evidence supporting becoming alkaline there is plenty about diet and breathing/meditation. ",
"The whole alkaline diet or alkaline water thing is pseudo-scientific mumbo jumbo. Your diet has exactly zero effect on the pH of your body, and you wouldn't want it to. Anything you eat must go through the blood stream before it can get to any other part of your body, so we need look no further than the pH of your blood to understand why diet does not affect the pH of the body. \n\nHaemoglobin binds to oxygen in the lungs and then carries it to other tissues to use. The absorption and release of oxygen by red blood cells is affected by pH. If it is too loo low (below 7.35 is called acidosis) your blood won't grab oxygen in the lungs and your tissues will die in minutes. If the pH is to high (above 7.45 is alkylosis) you absorb oxygen in the lungs, but the blood won't release it to your cells and the cells will also die in a few minutes. In order to keep the blood in the very narrow optimal pH range your hypothalmus essentially acts like a pH meter and tells your body to breathe deeper or faster when the pH is too low, which expels extra CO2, which in the blood is in the form of carbonic acid. If the pH is to high the hypothalmus slows your breathing and allows CO2 as carbonic acid to build up. These steps are taken within seconds of the pH being out of the optimal range. Any deviations caused by food you have consumed are corrected immediately. If they weren't, an orange would kill you in minutes."
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9xmb4g | at night time, why do windows appear to act as mirrors and lower the visibility through the glass? if you want to see outside the window at night, why is it best to turn out the lights? | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/9xmb4g/eli5at_night_time_why_do_windows_appear_to_act_as/ | {
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"Glass reflects a certain percentage of light passing through it. When you are on the darker side of the window, the light coming through the window is much brighter than the reflection. When you are on the bright side, the reflected light is much brighter than the light coming through the glass.",
"Windows always act like mirrors and lower the visibility through the glass, and it's always better to turn off the lights for a clear view. \n\nThe only difference is that during daytime there's *so much more light* outside than inside that the amount of mirrored light coming from inside is almost entirely imperceptible unless you're intentionally looking for it.\n\nYou can test this right now (or the next time it's day where you live) by turning on your brightest lamp and looking for its reflection in your windows. ",
"5% of photons are reflected back through glass. When they have darkness behind the glass, they show up more than what is behind it. Therefore you see a reflection. ",
"In a way, windows *are* mirrors. They're kind of like see-through double-sided mirrors. \n\nIf it's brighter on *your* side of the window, the reflections are also brighter. So it's harder to see what's on the other side because of all the reflections getting in the way.\n\nAnd backwards, if it's brighter on the other side of the window, it's easier to see what's there because it kind of \"out-shines\" the reflections from your own side.",
"Signal-to-noise ratio.\n\nIf you have high transmission from a bright scene outside, the relatively small reflection from inside is only a few percent of the total signal and you can easily ignore it.\n\nWhen there is almost no light coming in from outside, that small reflection from inside is the strongest signal, so your brain focuses on that instead.",
"Somewhat echoing other responses but:\n\nSuppose glass reflects quarter of the light, and lets the rest through.\n\nWhen it's brighter outside or equal, this means that when you look at the glass, at most a quarter of the light is reflection, and the rest - what is actually outside. You're able to see - perhaps with a bit of glare.\n\nWhen it's much darker outside, say, 10 times, majority of light you see when looking at the window is the reflected bit - making the window act more like a mirror and less like a glass.\n\nWhen you turn off the light, you equalise the amount of light inside and outside - meaning that when you look out, again majority of what you see comes from the outside rather than reflection."
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2zs8v0 | how is immigration policy determined in the us? why would the us want to limit the number of educated immigrants to the country? | American born citizen here. I have a lot of international friends that have to go through a lot of paperwork and trouble just to study and work here. It got me wondering about the policy on immigration in the United States. | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/2zs8v0/eli5_how_is_immigration_policy_determined_in_the/ | {
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"I am a Canadian citizen, and am in no way an expert on immigration, but i believe that the US places limits on immigration because there is limited resources (housing, jobs, healthcare etc.) that exist to serve US-born citizens. \n\nNow imagine that the US relaxes its immigration policies and allows more immigrants in, now there is more competition for those limited resources. This is why immigration policies exist.\n\nIf an immigrant brings skills that are lacking in the US, he should have priority on getting allowed into the US as he can help fill a gap that could not otherwise ve filled by a US citizen. If someone is trying to immigrate to the US and offers skills that many other people offer, that person wouldn't have as good a chance of getting into the country.\n\nThis is why its hard to immigrate into a country. The country has to determine if the people who want to get in will be a benefit to that country and not become a drain on the country's resources. \n",
"The US has the easiest immigration policies -out of any country in the world.- That's because we've always prided ourselves on being a nation that is accepting of immigration. The US accepts 1 *million* legal immigrants EVERY year under a variety of criteria: education, job, sponsorship, family, political refuge, etc. In addition, if you don't meet any of the set criteria, there is a green card 'lottery' accepting approximately another 200,000 per year.\n\nMore than 1 million people per year can put a strain on a country's resources, even one as large as the United States. While the US accepts more immigrants legally *than any other country on earth*, the cap is set so that there are enough resources to go around; not only within the logistical limitations of the immigration program itself, but within wherever the 1 million additional people will study, work, and reside. They will need This is the 'hard' cap, but the 'soft' cap for US immigration also has to take into account, the 6-10 million *illegal* immigrants who sneak in and use the same resources as the legal immigrants.\n\nMany legal immigrants eventually seek citizenship and become US citizens. Welcome aboard!\n\n_URL_0_",
"immigration is complex, but basically policy is decided by congress. The policy prioritizes families first and foremost, keeping children and spouses with immigrant parents/partners (71%). Second and to a much lesser degree are business migrants (21%), and last is cultural diversity (8%)\n\nThe Immigration and Naturalization Act forms the main body, but congress is always doing something here or there that has direct implications on immigration. The actuall enaction of all these changes falls into the hands of different functionaries. Because of security concerns there are many difficulties with getting initial visas and boarder crossing. But once in the country, it is VERY easy.\n\nAlso, generally speaking very easy to enter the US on temporary visas. There are no limits of the number of visa's awarded, and as long as you can wade throught he paperwork required by your particular type of visa, you almost certainly will be awarded the visa (rejection is basically only for people from certain countries or who state certain reasons, or ARE certain people, and those lists are all very small.)\n\nThere are hard caps on categories for long term visas. However, it isn't \"hard.\" Basically with either family or professional sponsorship, you qualify for a green card/permanant visa, and if you have a green card for 5 years, you can apply for citizenship. The catch is, there are very narrow limits on the numbers of green cards issued each year, and those limits are divided by job classification and immigrant status. So, almost ANYONE can come here to work, and while working they are qualified for a green card. BUT they are in line, and it can take many years for them to get in front of that line. More oftne then not, they finish their work in the country, and fail to find another job worth their skills, and so leave before getting a green card. That is what is happening with all the highly skilled people... if you get a 2-4 year high level position, you very well may never see a green card in that time. If you are unable to find another sponser (and no highly trained person is going to get just ANY job for the sole sake of staying in the country) then you lose legal residency status. OF course, it is very easy to survive in the US as an illigal migrant, as long as you pay taxes, you will only have problems when seeking federal services. Most illigal immigrants pay taxes and utilize state services.\n\nThe US congress varies the various limits on immigration categories for a variety of stated reasons, but it isn't a coherent policy and that is why reform is needed.\n\nAs for paperwork on short term visas, it is what it is, but I can say, the US paperwork is comparable to many security oriented countries. The US is also very beuracratic these days. The good news is that there are few hiccups regarding the forms, as long as you aren't from certain places or state certain reasons, you will get in. In reality, you could make up a lot of the information.\n\nThe most important think is the link between them and their sponsor. I've only seen this for academic students going to the US, don't know what it looks like for employeers.\n\nThe US policy has an annual limit of 675k permanant resident migrants not counting immediate family members of citizens, or refugees. only 140k are for professionals, 480 are for family, and make, by far, the highest priority of immigration (this is a stated objective, the goal being to keep families together, healthy, happy, and integrated) The rest of the permanant visas (55k) are part of a lottery program that targets immigrants from contries with low rates of migration into the US, this is in order to promote diveristy.\n\nRefugee green card are not taken from this pool, but are generated seperately by executive order.\n\nSo, every year, over a million people come to the US with a long term visa (not vacation.) and well over 675k of them consider staying. This has been going on for along time, so the backlog is VERY long. Sometimes it is longer than others. Also, because the system is weighted, if you have certain jobs, your chances are super low. Basically, the best way to get in is be family, this will keep your wait in the 2-3 year limit (because they award so many family green cards every year.) Sometimes the wait is really short! I know one acquantance who got a green card 8 months after applying! We were all surprised by that.\n\nIn the case of professionals and people waiting on the cultural diversity lottery, the wait can be oooo so long, too long."
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9uxmle | how can the gop win the senate but lose the house? | When people vote don't they vote for their party? Are there people that vote for GOP senators and Dem house members? | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/9uxmle/eli5_how_can_the_gop_win_the_senate_but_lose_the/ | {
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"Some people do vote for candidates individually, not just by party.\n\nBut more importantly, only 1/3 of Senate seats are up for a vote in each 2-year election, while *all* the House seats are up for a vote every 2 years.\n\nAlso, in all but the smallest states, each House seat is voted on by only *some section* of the state, while each Senate seat up for a vote is statewide.",
"Only a third of the senate is up for election each time. And the third that were up for election this year were the same ones who were up for election during Obamas last election. So only 9 republican senators were up for election this year as opposed to over two hundred republican representatives. So even if the democrats were able to win 2/3rd of the senators in this election they would not be able to gain a majority. However that changes drastically in two years. In addition to this the votes are not counted equally when counting for the house or the senate. Each state gets a number of representatives based on the population but all states gets two senators. So if rural voters were republicans and urban voters were democrats then the democrats would take the house and the republicans would take the senate just due to how the votes were tallied.",
"3 Big factors.\n\nEvery House seat was up for grabs, so you can think of it as the House races starting out 0-0. Only 1/3 of Senate seats were up for grabs, so the Republicans started out with a 42-23 lead in the Senate with the other 2/3 of the seats even before the night started.\n\nThe 2nd factor is that Obama in 2012 had \"long coattails\" and brought in a lot of Democrats to weak seats, like Claire McCaskill in Missouri which is pretty red. All those seats, which were up for re-election in 2018 were vulnerable, and some switched back Republican\n\nThe 3rd thing is the way American elections are set up, the Senate really just represents the states, which grossly overrepresents low population, rural interests, and the House more closely represents the population (although it still does a poor job due to gerrymandering and the cap on total seats in the house). For instance, in the Senate, Wyoming and Vermont, which barely have over a 1 million people combined have as much voice in the Senate (with 2 Senators each) as Texas and California, with close to 70 million people. In the House, Wyoming and Vermont have 2 House Seats, and Texas and California have 89 House Seats.",
"The house has loosely proportional representation, which means each state has a number of representatives loosely corresponding to their population: states with many inhabitants get more representatives. A voter has about as much say in the house, regardless of what state he lives in.\n\nIn the senate, on the other hand, each state has two senators regardless of population. That means that in the senate, one Wyoming vote counts as much as about 80 California votes. \n\nSmaller states tend to be rural states, and rural voters tend to be more conservative. Conservative voters tend to vote GOP. ",
"Unlike many other countries we do not vote for parties in the US. We vote for candidates with party affiliation.\n\nAs for how the House and Senate get different results, this is because a House Representative has a 2 year term and a Senator has a 6 year term. There are elections every 2 years, so all members of the House are up for election in those years, while only 1/3 of the Senate is up for election (the terms were intentionally staggered when the country was founded, and as new states were added, the term stagger was maintained. Look up \"classes of US senators\" for more info)\n\nSo there are about 2/3 of the Senate that were not up for election this year. The ones that were, were elected in 2012 (6 years ago) and that was a year that many Democrats were elected (because people were voting for Obama at the same time), whereas the other 2 groups of Senators were elected in 2014 and 2016 which were better years for Republicans."
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6j3siw | what is the loudness war and what side am i on? | I hear the term "Loudness War" with respect to recording, but I don't understand what it means. Should I be for or against Loud? What has Loud done to me? | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/6j3siw/eli5_what_is_the_loudness_war_and_what_side_am_i/ | {
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"You aren't quite on a side. The loudness war was an arms race within the music industry of louder and louder albums. You are collateral damage having been forced to listen to albums that inexplicably sacrificed audio quality for volume for ages. ",
"The Loudness War is defined as a trend in recorded music that has gotten generally louder and louder over time. Early records were relatively quiet; later records would record at louder volumes; compact discs set a digital limit that sound engineers would come up against through different compression techniques, and so on.\n\nAs time goes on, it seems the louder music wins out as being the more popular music of the day. Many consumers don't seem to care as much for sound quality as they do for the loudness of the music, as that can grab their attention.\n\nAs for what side you're on? Well, that's a personal question. Do you prefer more dynamic sound with good quality, or is it all Top 40 hits at max volume for you?",
"Music sounds better at high volumes. Partially because you can hear more intricacies and you're more immersed, and partially just because that's how our brains work.\n\nTherefore, over the past few decades, producers have been mastering songs louder and louder, constantly running up against the physical limits of their media (vinyl, cassettes, CDs, digital media). This is so that their songs sound better on the radio without needing the listener to turn up the volume.\n\nBut there's a catch. Mastering a song against the upper limits of its format sacrifices dynamic range and intricacies. There can't be loud parts if the entire song is at max. And frequencies near the limits of our hearing need to be louder to be heard through more accessible frequencies, but those are lost too. \n\nOn the radio, these sacrifices don't matter. It's the radio, it's going to sound bad no matter what, so maxing out loudness makes your song more noticeable to the average listener. But when it comes to listening on a system that doesn't sound like crap (literally anything better than radio), the song will sound better if it's mastered quieter and with more dynamic range.\n\nTurning up the volume on your listening device does not necessarily have the same catches. It depends on the limits of your setup. It makes more sense to leave all the intricacies in the track and let the listener adjust the volume.\n\nExample: _URL_0_",
"any given medium (e.g. an mp3, a record, a web stream) has some maximum value that an instant of sound can have (it's \"amplitude\"); you can't make any instant of sound \"louder\" within that medium past that maximum value.\n\nbut our experience of loudness has more to do with average amplitude over time. one way to increase this is to make all instants have higher amplitude by scaling the signal up, but you can only do this so far before you run into the maximum value for that medium. but there are various techniques to make every instant of the sound closer to the maximum amplitude that the medium can represent (e.g. \"compression\"), but this will change the shape and character of the source signal.\n\nwhat's good about this technique is that people seem to immediately, if momentarily, prefer music that sounds very loud to them - this helps get downloads, purchases, and listeners on the radio.\n\nwhat's bad about this technique is that constantly-very-loud music loses its immediate appeal fairly quickly, and can actually make your ears feel funny/uncomfortable unless its done really well. for example, an action movie that's just one massive explosion would get boring pretty quickly. in addition to making the music boring, it can just make it sound weird and unnatural. another thing that people don't like is that it can make music that hasn't been processed this way sound bizarrely quiet and underwhelming (but some reproduction systems, like the iphone, can try to adjust for this).\n\nbeing on one side or the other is probably a false choice - most people seem to prefer music that has been compressed somewhat, provided that the audio engineer hasn't gone totally berzerk. also, people don't usually listen to massive trap bangers and acoustic folk music in the same playlist, so the massive difference in engineering styles between genres don't usually impact listeners.",
"Basically, at the start of the 90's it was decided that 'louder is better', so when music was recorded, the final master was compressed to make it sound louder.\n\n[Here's an image](_URL_0_) of what the actual waveform would look like if you compared a song mastered in the 80's to the late 90's.\n\nBut, while this made songs appear louder, one thing you'll notice in that image is it leaves no room for dynamic range. Basically, everything is roughly the same volume...so while it gives a louder and arguably more 'full' sound, it leads to the recording sounding flatter. You can't have a quiet, whispered lyric and a build into a big drum or bass hit, because that whispered vocal is going to be the same volume as the bass drum.\n\nThere have also been arguments that overly compressed audio is far more tiring to listen to and can possibly lead to hearing damage. With no variation in volume it has the same effect as listening to loud static.",
"For a concrete example of \"What has loudness done to me?\" take a listen fo Metallica's album *Death Magnetic*. The album was released with an incredibly loud mix that drew criticism for washing out the music, but to make matters worse a far superior mix was released as DLC for the video game *Guitar Hero 3.* [Listen to a side by side here.](_URL_0_) Even the band (notoriously anti piracy) preferred the latter mix and insinuated that they didn't care if you torrented it provided you also bought the album. "
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8x3fkn | why can my phone with a 4 watt soc play back 1440p video without even getting warm to the touch while my laptop with a much more powerful gpu has to ramp up it's fans and make tons of heat to accomplish the same task. | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/8x3fkn/eli5_why_can_my_phone_with_a_4_watt_soc_play_back/ | {
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"Probably because your phone has hardware that can decode the video, while your laptop needs to do it via software.",
"Ah yes, Google’s and Apple’s VP9 beef. Blame Apple and/or Google. Whichever you think is guilty.\n\nGather around kids, let me tell you a story.\n\nI’ll go off the assumption you are referring to a YouTube video here. And I am assuming you are using Chrome, not Safari, as Safari cannot play 1440p YouTube video (we will get into why later).\n\nThe reason is video codecs.\n\nThe issue with video is that video files normally are massive. If we use 1 byte for red green, and blue for each pixel of a 1080p video, then each frame of the video (and there are probably 30 frames in a second) takes up 6 megabytes (3\\*1920*1080). A single second at 30 frames per second would take up 186 megabytes as a result.\n\nWe don’t have the bandwidth nor the storage to handle this. So what do we do?\n\nWe do a little thing called compression.\n\nCompression just uses a bunch of neat tricks to make a video file smaller. For example, if a part of the screen is all the same color, instead of listing the color multiple times, we just list the color once and say “all of these are the same color). \n\nNow for some history.\n\nThere are multiple algorithms for video compression out and about. The most common these days is called h.264, aka the Advanced Video Coding, or AVC. It was established in the late 90s and early 00s. The Moving Picture Experts Group (MPEG) was an organization that was formed in the early 90s to produce such algorithms and this was their latest iteration. \n\nThe issue with MPEG was that they included many different companies who each contributed their patents and findings but refused to give them for free, they started getting greedy. Everyone wants royalties, and a company is formed with the sole purpose of getting everyone to agree to a single set of terms of use. Nonetheless, the algorithm was released with pretty liberal terms of use. \n\nThe year is 2006. Google recently purchased YouTube and MPEG had hints going around of a new video codec algorithm to be released. Google decided to take a different approach, they saw that MPEG was gonna have more issues with parents as each new iteration of their algorithm brought in more knowledge and thus more patents. Instead Google teamed up with a little company called On2 technologies, who designed several codecs to produce the VP8 codec, released in 2008. Eventually google would buy On2 and release the codec for free for anyone to use.\n\nA few years pass, Google is proven right. The new codec MPEG is working on, the High Efficiency Video Codec (HEVC, also called h.265) is turning out to be good but a patent hell (the end consumer doesn’t notice this but companies making operating systems and hardware do). Google iterates on VP8 to produce VP9, a pretty good codec, lagging slightly behind HEVC. But it isn’t a patent he’ll and google says it is good enough. YouTube has become the giant it is today and Google begins to make YouTube use their VP9 codec.\n\nOne of the key things one must understand as well is a little thing called a hardware decoder.\n\nIn computing, there is a principle known as abstractness. One can design a chip that can do one specific thing very very well but can only do that thing, or one can design a chip that can do everything, but slowly and more inefficient in comparison. And this is on a spectrum, CPUs for example do everything but not as well, GPUs are more in the middle, can’t do as much as a CPU but they are very good at doing calculations related to graphics.\n\nThese newer generations of codecs are very computation expensive to use, decoding a video takes a lot of CPU power. So the solution is to design specific parts of the GPU for the sole purpose of decoding video in popular algorithm formats. These are known as hardware decoders, they remove the strain off the CPU to decode, saving both battery and computational power. This is very important in phones, as they don’t often even have the computational power to decode a video with the speed necessary to watch it. So phone processors were the first to implement hardware decoders.\n\nBut there are still benefits to hardware decoders on normal computers and especially laptops, who have limited batteries that shouldn’t be wasted by ramping the processor up whenever a video is playing. So, recently Intel and the other chip companies (AMD and NVIDIA) have all implemented.\n\nAVC was the first hardware decoder to be implemented onto many platforms. Then HEVC and VP9 were also added.\n\nWith many modern devices now supporting VP9 hardware decoding, Google now is trying to switch to ditching AVC and using VP9 only. At this point, most browsers and operating systems have all implemented support for VP9 hardware decoders, except Apple. Despite their hardware (including the iPhone) having hardware decoders for VP9, Apple has refused to implement the software to allow it to be used by apps and browsers. \n\nA codec unsupported by a browser will not play in the browser at all, with or without a hardware decoder. Safari does not support VP9 decoding so YouTube must feed them AVC instead. Chrome on the other hand is Google’s ballpark and they can implement support for VP9 on Mac easily, and they did. But without support from the operating system to give Chrome access to the VP9 hardware decoder, Chrome cannot use it.\n\nGoogle has recently started putting pressure on Apple by refusing to support AVC content for 1440p and 4K videos. Apple as always is silent on the matter and has refused to comment at all, but as a slap to Google, they recently implemented support for HEVC decoding on Mac, but not VP9. \n\nSo the answer to your question is this.\n\nPhones use hardware decoders to make decoding video, the computation intensive task of processing video, more efficient in terms of battery and computation. Computers have this ability as well nowadays. Due to Apple refusing to implement support for a hardware decoder THAT IS FOUND IN THE DEVICES, Chrome has to rely on the CPU to decode VP9 video which YouTube sends to them, making things hot and sweaty.\n\nTL;DR: Google made a new video format. The hardware inside Macs support making processing said video format clean and easy. Google has forced Apple to use this new video format. Apple has refused to implement support for this hardware. Your Mac has to fall back on using the CPU instead of more efficient hardware it already contains.\n\n\nPS: Google began working on VP9’s successor, called VP10. A few years ago. After seeing the collapse of MPEG, many companies and organizations wanted to help Google out. Google then decided to allow their contributions if and only if they released the rights and patents to it and founded the Alliance for Open Media and renamed their codec AV1. Supposedly this codec is slated to release very very soon and should topple HEVC. All major hardware companies have pledged to implement hardware support of AV1 ASAP.\n\nApple has also apparently joined this alliance. "
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30rcvi | how does soap and shampoo "clean" you? could you use shampoo like a soap? | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/30rcvi/eli5_how_does_soap_and_shampoo_clean_you_could/ | {
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"Shampoo is soap. \nSoap encapsulates dirt and greases, making it easier to rinse them off. ",
"It's important to note that soap don't kill bacteria. Soap breaks the surface tension of water and in combination with the rubbing action of you hands, the bacteria gets washed off. Soap created emulsion between water and oil so that oils can be removed form the skin. Your hair needs oils and it's not good for your hair to use soap as it will eventually cause them to become brittle and break. Shampoo is a little more subtle than soap and won't remove all the oils form your hair. However, it won't remove all the oils from your skin either. Use the right tool for the right job."
]
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[],
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bte8gv | how does the scam in the wolf of wall street work? | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/bte8gv/eli5_how_does_the_scam_in_the_wolf_of_wall_street/ | {
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"text": [
"The pump and dump scheme? I've only seen the movie once when it first came out, but I'm pretty sure that's what it is. Basically you buy a crapload of low value stocks and create a buzz, causing others to buy which increases the price. Once it hits a certain point you sell all your shares at a profit. Its market manipulation which is illegal. I'm not a lawyer though so I may be wrong."
]
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||
4d51py | what happens if no candidate gets the needed number of delegates for the republican nomination? | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/4d51py/eli5_what_happens_if_no_candidate_gets_the_needed/ | {
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"text": [
"They vote again until one does, it is a fairly simple process. It is called a contested convention."
]
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[]
] |
||
46o5bo | why would a gravitational wave travel at the same speed as light? | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/46o5bo/eli5why_would_a_gravitational_wave_travel_at_the/ | {
"a_id": [
"d06mzyd"
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"text": [
"Calling it the speed of light is sort of a misnomer, really. Instead, there's a speed of causality in the universe that no information can travel faster than. So light travels at the speed of causality, and so do gravitational waves. \n\nFor more information, watch [this](_URL_0_) great video from PBS Space Time. He explains the speed of causality really well."
]
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[
"https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=msVuCEs8Ydo"
]
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||
4l86k6 | how does this phone holder for your car not break your phone? | Hello Reddit! I want to know how [this phone holder](_URL_0_) works without breaking my phone.
It essentially works by putting a metal plate on the back of my phone and then having a car mounted magnet hold up my phone via magnetic force but I have always heard that you should not put magnets near electronics so how does this work without breaking anything?
Also if I put credit cards into my phone case and I have them sitting between the metal plate and the magnet will it break them? I have heard the same thing about magnets and credit cards too. | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/4l86k6/eli5_how_does_this_phone_holder_for_your_car_not/ | {
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"text": [
"There are two electronics components that are sensitive to magnets: cathode ray tube (CRT) screens and hard drives. Your phone does not have either of those- it has an LED or LCD screen instead of a CRT and uses flash memory instead of a hard drive. \n\nWith credit cards, the magnetic strip will get messed up with a strong magnet, but the chip that more places are switching to using (and pretty much everyone outside the US has fully switched to) will not be impacted by a magnet. The magnet on the case probably isn't strong enough to mess up the credit cards, especially with the metal plate between the cards and the magnet, but I'd probably avoid it just to be safe."
]
} | [] | [
"http://www.amazon.com/WizGear-Universal-Magnetic-Swift-SnapTM-Technology/dp/B00PGJWYJ0?ie=UTF8&keywords=phone%20mount%20car&qid=1464305951&ref_=sr_1_1&sr=8-1"
] | [
[]
] |
|
27mef8 | how do travel agents get paid? | ELI5: My fiance and I are dealing with a travel agent to plan our wedding and I was wondering how they make money? | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/27mef8/eli5_how_do_travel_agents_get_paid/ | {
"a_id": [
"ci277jw",
"ci27gj9"
],
"score": [
3,
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"text": [
"Aren't you paying this travel agent? \n \nI'm surprised that there still are travel agents. I remember seeing travel agencies in strip malls when i was a little kid but I haven't seen one in years.\n \n",
"Travel agents generally collect directly from you when you book with them as part of the fee for the whole package. \n\nWebsites that offer the airline/hotel/car rental packages are basically functioning like travel agents would have in days past."
]
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1vri4l | why do many southeast asian countries have such harsh drug laws? | Mandatory capital punishment for trafficking seems excessive. Is there a historical basis for why this part of the world is so hard on drugs? | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/1vri4l/eli5_why_do_many_southeast_asian_countries_have/ | {
"a_id": [
"cev3mjb"
],
"score": [
2
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"text": [
"These countries are are trying to improve their economic standing. They don't want people to steal to get their high, or become homeless, or jobless. They also don't want the children of he area to get addicted to any drugs. That's where most of the anti-drug sentiment comes from. They see it as if your trafficking/selling drugs, you might sell to a child which would ruin their lives, in essence you would kill his life though he would still be living. So basically their getting the death sentence for ruining other peoples life's."
]
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[]
] |
|
2rv6tx | why do people squeeze lotion onto the back of their hand? | I consistently see people squeeze lotion out onto the back of their hand, even if they then proceed to apply it to their whole hand. I don't see this with hand sanitiser, soap, or anything else. Just lotion. Why do people do this? | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/2rv6tx/eli5_why_do_people_squeeze_lotion_onto_the_back/ | {
"a_id": [
"cnjjqy7",
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2,
2
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"text": [
"The back of your hand gets dry and cracks the most, and needs as much lotion as possible. After they make sure the back is well covered the rest is dispersed evenly to the rest if the hands. ",
"I would imagine its also so the front of their hand doesn't get an overly saturated amount but rather an even coat.\n"
]
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[],
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|
9ap5gt | why does driving feel smoother in the drivers seat? | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/9ap5gt/eli5_why_does_driving_feel_smoother_in_the/ | {
"a_id": [
"e4x08y1"
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"text": [
"When you know what will happen, your body prepares for it.\n\nHard left, you know exactly when it will happen.\nAceleration, deceleration are the same, you prepare for acceleration when you press gas pedal.\n\nPassengers are surprised when something happens, and their body doesn't react.\n\nLike in football, if someone slams against you and you expect it, you might even not even fall down. But someone surprise slamming into you while you are relaxed and standing on a street not expecting it, you will hit the ground so hard."
]
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[]
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||
7qr77r | what prevents blood from flowing backwards into an iv bag? | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/7qr77r/eli5_what_prevents_blood_from_flowing_backwards/ | {
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"text": [
" The fact that the needle is facing away from the direction of the flow, and gravity. Put the bag below your heart, and you'll see blood go back up the tubing into the bag. ",
"Gravity. \n\nThe IV bag hangs above the patient and the solution flows down the IV line. This pressure pushes the IV solution into vein which prevents blood from flowing into the tube. "
]
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[],
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||
7opxjr | how is it that breasts get slightly bigger then slightly smaller again during 'that time of the month' | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/7opxjr/eli5_how_is_it_that_breasts_get_slightly_bigger/ | {
"a_id": [
"dsbe5wk"
],
"score": [
4
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"text": [
"Progesterone and prolactin are released during your period, which causes breast tissue to swell and milk glands to increase in size. Your body will also retain water which may contribute. "
]
} | [] | [] | [
[]
] |
||
2litj3 | why are 3d printed gun such a big deal? | 3D printed guns have been all over the news in the last year or so, but I don't really get it. I understand that now anyone can print their own gun at home, but just molding a gun and its parts can't be a lot harder, right? Why is the 3D printed gun different, is it just that it's a LITTLE easier? Or am I missing something?
EDIT: thanks for all the answers, I think I understand it little better now! | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/2litj3/eli5_why_are_3d_printed_gun_such_a_big_deal/ | {
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"text": [
"Molding a gun and its parts takes a professional with lots of experience and knowledge, along with the expensive molds/etc. \n\nA 3D printer you can buy at staples.",
"because gun grabbers didn't know that you're totally allowed to build your own gun without a license and without serial numbers. but now that 3d printing has made it into mainstream, it's a huge deal.",
"Many of the things a 3D printer can do can be duplicated by someone skilled at casting and molding plastics (or other materials), but a 3D printer means *anyone* can do it.\n\nIf there were as many 3D printers in the wild as there are, say, laser printers, this would mean that anyone could potentially have an almost traceless non-metallic firearm. Easy access to firearms (notwithstanding what adherents of /r/thegunmetalgraypill or whatever might say :-) directly causes gun misadventure and violence at a much higher rate than it causes good-guy-with-a-gun-stopping-bad-guy-with-a-gun activities. That makes a lot of people concerned about printed firearms.\n\nRight now printing firearms isn't a mature process -- really, using 3D printers at all is still fairly techie and niche. But that won't always be the case.",
"Just to add, the responses so far seem to have covered most of the concerns people have with 3D gun printing.\n\nTo an American, who can manufacture his own, unlicensed gun without a serial number (TIL) then 3D printing of guns might not seem like a big deal. Here in the U.K though the concern is more valid as it could give people an easy way to get hold of a handgun which (rightly or wrongly) we as a nation have decided is a serious crime and very dangerous.",
"Also, because 3D printers use plastic to mold items, there has been concerns about guns that could be slipped through metal detectors. For now though, printer plastic remains too brittle for use like that. It would shatter when you pulled the trigger. "
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4f3zle | how can we determine gender from handwriting? what makes some handwriting "girly"? | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/4f3zle/eli5_how_can_we_determine_gender_from_handwriting/ | {
"a_id": [
"d25p0yr",
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"text": [
"Women develop fine motor skills earlier than men. When leaning to write they have already developed past a males, and at that point I'm guessing they develop habits (better or worse) and they take over later in life. ",
"Women develop their fine motor skills about 2-3 years sooner than boys. That just happens to coincide with the time we teach handwriting in schools. So it seems like girls have better handwriting than boys. \n\nThat is not to say that some boys cannot have better handwriting than some girls, but on average, girls have the better handwriting.\n\nThey also practice more (girls are more likely to keep a journal and do art projects when they are bored). But that's just a product of society and not biological."
]
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||
5iq42u | why is it that western and mid-western states (nevada, colorado) have very clean borders (demarcations with almost straight lines) whereas eastern states (florida, n.carolina) have not so clean borders? | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/5iq42u/eli5_why_is_it_that_western_and_midwestern_states/ | {
"a_id": [
"dba3nb0"
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"score": [
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"text": [
"Eastern states were often settled first, and divided up later. Even where not, they tended to be divided along natural boundaries 0 the state goes to this river, for example. So the boundaries are as random as the natural border.\n\nIn the west, the states were divided almost before people lived out there, certainly before they were extensively mapped and such, so they just said \"the state goes to this latitude and this longitude.\" Thus, straight lines."
]
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||
7k0q1b | how are cabinet members chosen? | Is it up to the discretion of the president to do this or is there a longer process? If it is up to just the president, how is this allowable in terms of a constitutional government? | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/7k0q1b/elif_how_are_cabinet_members_chosen/ | {
"a_id": [
"dralx04"
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"text": [
"Per the law, the POTUS nominates the member and then that member is confirmed by the Senate. That is all that is actually legally required.\n\nIn practice, the POTUS will have a much longer vetting process run by various staffers or will dole out these nominations as repayment for political favors.\n\nIt is allowable because that is how the Constitution lays out the process in the Appointments Clause (Article II, Section 2, Clause 2):\n\n > He [the President] ... shall nominate, and by and with the Advice and Consent of the Senate, shall appoint Ambassadors, other public Ministers and Consuls, Judges of the supreme Court, and all other Officers of the United States, whose Appointments are not herein otherwise provided for, and which shall be established by Law: but the Congress may by Law vest the Appointment of such inferior Officers as they think proper, in the President alone, in the Courts of Law, or in the Heads of Departments."
]
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|
1z5mw3 | why is berkshire hathaway (brk-a) being traded at $171,000/share? | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/1z5mw3/eli5_why_is_berkshire_hathaway_brka_being_traded/ | {
"a_id": [
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"text": [
"Because there aren't many shares for sale. That means that each is worth a bigger % of the value of the company.",
"They chose to never split the shares. "
]
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||
7fv07s | how does one alphabetize kanji? | English for example has 26 letters in defined order and words or names can be sorted easily this way, for example, making directory for business employee or phone book, or dictionary for words. But in Asian countries like Japan, their name aren't spelled in letters but in kanji and there can be several thousand different symbols for words or names.
How would a school sort student's name? Or how would a typical Japanese dictionary be sorted so they can quickly look up word?
Not just Japan, but many Asian countries (China, Korea, etc) | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/7fv07s/eli5_how_does_one_alphabetize_kanji/ | {
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"text": [
"Korea has an alphabet song, just like English. \n\nTheir is an order is 가 나 다, etc. \n\nSo, names are ordered by their \"alphabet\" first symbol.",
"There are three different kinds of character systems in use in East Asian languages, ones that represent simple sounds (alphabets), ones that represent whole syllables (syllabaries), and ones that represent concepts (logographic systems). They're treated differently, and the same language sometimes uses multiple sorts (for instance, written Japanese uses both the logographic kanji and the syllabaries hiragana and katakana).\n\nAlphabets and syllabaries typically just have a canonical ordering of the characters, and they're sorted lexicographically in the usual way.\n\nLogographic writing systems are really what you're asking about, though, and those have a couple different ways. The most common is the radical-and-stroke system. Each character is classified into groups based on what the \"primary\" component (known as a radical) is, and those radicals are then ordered. Within a single radical, characters are sorted by the number of lines (known as strokes) used in the character, from least to most. Within a group of characters with the same primary radical and number of strokes, ties are broken relatively arbitrarily (usually there's a convention for this).\n\nAnother way is to sort them based on how they would be written in a different writing system that has a built-in sorting method. Some Japanese dictionaries and such are done this way, by sorting words based on how they'd be written in kana. Some languages that use CJK characters don't have such an option, though, since they don't have more than one writing system.",
"With Chinese it's done by radical and stroke order (I believe that Kanji are organized similarly).\n\nMaking it very basic: \nThere are sort of two types of characters, ones that are relatively simple in construction and do no require a lot of lines to write and more complex ones that have a bunch of different components.\n\nFor the more simple characters, like hand (手), it's simply a matter of how many stokes (individual lines) you use to write the character. In this case 4 strokes. This character served two purposes. By itself it means hand, but it *also* is what's called a radical and it, or a modified version of it, is included in words that are semantically associated with \"hands\" or grasping, etc. It can, very loosely, be thought of as being like a root word in English.\n\nI open my dictionary (it's actually in front of me as I write this), look for the initial section that has those simple characters, look under the portion that has 4 strokes, and look for the character. This then tells me the next place to go in the dictionary, which in this case is to a portion of the dictionary that contains words that include 手 as part of the writing.\n\nWhen I go to the portion of the dictionary that lists words that include 手, I am again presented with a list of characters listed in order of how many strokes they involve. In some dictionaries this is a separate list with page numbers for subsequent characters, in other dictionaries this takes you right to that portion of the dictionary (similar to going to the B portion of an English dictionary)\n\nIn any event, in the 手 portion of the dictionary, one of the first words you encounter is this character, 承 (to hold or to bear) which includes the 手 character, radical in this case (look at the center of the character), plus 4 additional strokes. Other more complex characters that incorporate the 手 radical have more strokes and are listed further down.\n\nThis sounds complicated, but it makes a good bit of sense, once you're used to it.\n\nAn English analogy would be the following:\n\nLet's say you are looking up words that include -scope in them. Scope by itself has a meaning (watch or see) and is 5 \"strokes\" (we will use letters as strokes in this case). You go to the initial portion of your dictionary and look for words that include 5 letters/strokes... andro, cadre, indri, *scope*.\n\nYou then go to the page indicated to see what other words include \"scope\". This starts with the word scope, then the words get longer depending on how many additional letters/strokes they include in addition to the initial 5 used to write \"scope\".... epi*scope* (3 additional strokes/letters), cryo*scope* (4 additional strokes/letters), fluoro*scope* (6 additional strokes/letters), etc.",
"Korean doesn't fall into this category: it actually uses a real alphabet. Those characters that look like complicated Chinese-style logograms are actually syllable blocks, made up of (usually) two or three letters that represent sounds, and these letters have a fixed order (however, North Korea and South Korea use different alphabetical orders).\n\nFor example, the writing system is called \"한글\". It's two syllables, and each syllable is read from left to right and from top to bottom. The individual letters are:\n\n* ㅎ = h\n* ㅏ = a\n* ㄴ = n\n* ㄱ = g\n* ㅡ = eu (sometimes transliterated \"ŭ\")\n* ㄹ = l\n\n-- so: \"hangeul\". No problem at all: \"ㅎ\" is 19th in the South Korean alphabet.\n\nChinese ideograms, or kanji in Japanese, are more complicated. They're sorted by radical and stroke count.\n\nThe \"radical\" is the part of the character that gives you a clue about the meaning of a word. For example, the character \"媽\" means \"mother\": the radical is on the left, \"女\" and means \"woman\". The rest of the character, \"馬\", gives a clue about the pronunciation. Its actual meaning is \"horse\", but in Mandarin Chinese it's pronounced \"mǎ\". This is *almost* the same as \"mā\", the word for \"mother\", so the whole character means: \"This is a word for a woman, and it sounds a bit like the word for a horse.\"\n\nThere are a bit more than 200 radicals in Chinese, and they're sorted according to the number of strokes you need to write them. [Here's a list of the 214 radicals encoded in Unicode](_URL_1_) -- notice how they get more complex the further down the list you go.\n\nSo most dictionaries are arranged such that you first look up the radical, and then you look for the character you're searching for, again according to the number of strokes. If you want to look up \"媽\", for example, you need to first find \"女\", which is the 38th radical. You'll have a long list of characters that use that radical, again sorted from least strokes to most strokes -- you know that \"媽\", which needs 10 extra strokes, is going to be further down the list than \"奴\", which needs 2.\n\n[This is the list of characters that use the 38th radical](_URL_0_) -- there are 681 in all.",
"In Japan at least, they're not organized by Kanji.\n\nJapanese has three writing systems; Hiragana and Katakana (which are phonetic systems), and Kanji (which are Chinese symbols). For their version of alphabetization, the names will be spelled out in Hiragana/Katakana, and then organized following the same organizational system of those writing styles.\n\nAlternatively, they'll sometimes use Romanji (which is just our Latin alphabet, specifically the English variation) and alphabetize according to that system."
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nsklm | the game of craps | I've always wanted to play (especially since I've been told that it has the best odds versus the house) but I just don't get it. The one time I played I was so nervous that I was going to mis-throw the dice that I didn't pay attention to how I lost.
Are 7's good or bad? How should I bet? How can I make my money last? And all those good questions.
Thanks for your help! | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/nsklm/eli5_the_game_of_craps/ | {
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"For some reason this question keeps coming up. [This seems to be the best answer.](_URL_0_)",
"1. Place bet \n2. Roll dice\n3. If you get a 7 or 11, you win\n4. If you get a 2, 3, or 12, you lose\n5. Otherwise, what you roll is your *point*\n6. Roll again\n7. If you get a 7, you lose\n8. If you get your point, you win\n9. Otherwise, go back to step 6\n\nThat is it in a nutshell. The rest of the table is either betting with or against the shooter, or are making various propositional bets about how the round will go.",
"For some reason this question keeps coming up. [This seems to be the best answer.](_URL_0_)",
"1. Place bet \n2. Roll dice\n3. If you get a 7 or 11, you win\n4. If you get a 2, 3, or 12, you lose\n5. Otherwise, what you roll is your *point*\n6. Roll again\n7. If you get a 7, you lose\n8. If you get your point, you win\n9. Otherwise, go back to step 6\n\nThat is it in a nutshell. The rest of the table is either betting with or against the shooter, or are making various propositional bets about how the round will go."
]
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1wbdex | why water flows ? | the question really is about why does a liquid substance flow like it does... taking the shape of what comes on it's way... always going down if it can..
I know it sounds like a stupid question, but there is no stupid question when you are five.. and actually, it's my friend's daughter who is just five who came with the question.... and we are still not sure how to answer her ... help?
edit: grammar (and sorry if there is more mistakes, english is not my first language)
| explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/1wbdex/eli5why_water_flows/ | {
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"Basically the force holding a liquid's molecules together is weaker than other forces that its experiencing. The most significant one usually being gravity. Gravity pulling down on the molecules in the liquid overcomes any sort of connection between the molecules, and the liquid will flow across whatever surface it's on until something stops it (like the sides of a container, or the floor).\n\nIn a solid object, there are forces between the molecules that hold it together against those other forces. If you apply a big enough force to a solid, however, you can deform them, often in ways that look very similar to a liquid. An example would be glaciers. When a glacier is growing, new ice gets added to the top, and the weight of all that ice cause the glacier to \"flow\" down the mountain, in a manner in many ways similar to how liquid water would flow, although at a much slower rate."
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390e26 | why are some things prioritized in media and other things aren't? | For example the school shootings in Pakistan vs Almost the same event in an African country I can't remember the name of (due to almost no news reports). The only reason I heard about the killings in this country was because of people complaining about there being no news reports on it even though the death-count was relatively high. | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/390e26/eli5_why_are_some_things_prioritized_in_media_and/ | {
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"When it comes to international news in North America, there are two sources primarily used by news companies. The Associated Press in the USA and The Canadian Press in Canada. Once a story is found at a media organization it has to pass what I like the call the \"do I care,\" test. \n\nIf you don't care about a story as a news journalist, or if you don't think that the audience will care about the story, you don't cover it. A story that no one will be interested in is pointless. Media organizations struggle year-round to get your eyes and/or ears focused on them. The average listener getting bored threatens ratings/circulation/clicks, which directly hurts your bottom line. \n\nMost media organizations are here for entertainment because that's what sells. I don't mean Entertainment stories, though those are often successful, but rather something to amuse the viewer. If it won't draw your eyes, chances are those \"boring\" stories will be ignored. ",
"Well, what gets ratings? We don't care about black kids dying, but we care about evil islam being evil. \nThen, there are also things like not pissing off government, because they might make the reporting job harder...\n\nIf you are interested, look up the propaganda model - basically a theory on how even without direct intervention, we end up with filtered media. "
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mzoio | what stops people sitting in the emergency exit seats on a plane from pulling the window and killing everyone? | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/mzoio/eli5_what_stops_people_sitting_in_the_emergency/ | {
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"OK, nobody has explained it yet. \n\nFirst of all, the door is 20-30kgs heavy, and you have to pull it out then turn it and toss it through in an emergency. In the air, the pressure is really high inside the plane, and low outside the plane. This means the air pressure forces the door closed, so you'd never be able to open it.\n\nAs for the ones on the ends that \"open out\", apparently these open in first, then out. So they still have pressure against them. I guess its designed in a way which means as its pulled in, the angle changes slightly. Either way the positive air pressure inside the plane stops the doors from opening in the air",
"OK, nobody has explained it yet. \n\nFirst of all, the door is 20-30kgs heavy, and you have to pull it out then turn it and toss it through in an emergency. In the air, the pressure is really high inside the plane, and low outside the plane. This means the air pressure forces the door closed, so you'd never be able to open it.\n\nAs for the ones on the ends that \"open out\", apparently these open in first, then out. So they still have pressure against them. I guess its designed in a way which means as its pulled in, the angle changes slightly. Either way the positive air pressure inside the plane stops the doors from opening in the air"
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6tonty | how are deafblind people taught to communicate? | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/6tonty/eli5_how_are_deafblind_people_taught_to/ | {
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"The brain's capacity for *language* is not strictly a sensory function. We may perceive *expressions* of language via our senses, but language is *processed* by entirely different sections of the brain. \n\nThis may seem obvious, but it's important here. A person missing one or more of the five senses need not have any deficit in their *linguistic* capacity whatsoever. Take the alphabet, for instance. The English alphabet is *significantly* phonetic, but anyone studying English as a second language will almost invariably find the English language's tendency to *completely* disregard prevailing phonetic rules in the most promiscuous fashion laughably frustrating. Most other languages with phonetic alphabets have a far stricter correspondence between individual letters and combinations thereof and phonetic sounds than does English.\n\nBut that just underlines the fact that the way a word *sounds* does not have nearly so much connection to what a word *means* and how a word is *spelled* as one might think. One can learn that the word spelled \"D-O-G\" refers to a quadrupedal mammal without ever hearing the word pronounced. . . or seeing a dog. \n\nAs to more \"abstract\" concepts, it would depend upon the kind of abstraction we're talking about. Philosophical concepts would not appear to be any more or less difficult for a deaf/blind person than a hearing/sighted person. Such concepts are, after all, *concepts*. \"Justice\" is not amenable to perception by any of the five senses, so there is no obvious reason to think that a person lacking one or more senses would have any more difficulty grasping the concept than a person possessed of all five. It's only when we get to subjective impressions that are inherently a function of the senses (what philosophers call \"qualia,\" e.g., color, musical pitch, etc.) that someone like Keller would really be at a loss. But it doesn't seem to have slowed her down much. Those subjective impressions, interesting and important as they may be, turn out not to play nearly so much of a role in the way we live our lives as it might seem. ",
"I'm a nurse that works with DeafBlind individuals, hopefully I can explain this well! \n\nFor most things, it's all about teaching the concept behind the idea. And using all other available senses. Also, repetition. \n\nFor an apple, you can sign with AITSL (adapted interactive tactile sign language - hand over hand) the sign for apple. Have them eat an apple, sign it again. Smell apples, sign it again. Feel the apple, sign it again. Etc. \n\nFor more abstract concepts - for example, laundry - seems simple enough. It's easy to teach someone the *skill* of doing laundry, but *why* do we do it. Because things are dirty, of course. But if you cant see the dirt, or get the concept of the clothes being 'dirty', it seems silly as to why we put out clothes in this machine. So we have to start with teaching 'dirty', go I. The garden, get messy, feel/smell the dirt on your clothes. Then teach the concept of clean. Then putting it all together, explaining that the machine takes the clothes from dirty to clean. This is a painstakingly long process, and also relies alot on the DeafBlind individuals cognitive abilities. \n\nAlso, keep in mind, most DeafBlind folks have some residual hearing and vision. One client I support just requires that we sign for her about 2-4 inches right in front of her left eye, as that's where her visual field is. \n\nI hope that helps! \n\nEdit: Gold?!?! Thank you, a hundred times over, kind strangers!! \nAlso I've had a lot of requests for an AMA, I'm totally going to do it, stay tuned! And thank you all for the overwhelming interest in what I have to say!! And especially to OP for asking the question that started all of this awesome dialogue :)",
"Helen Keller's teacher would trace letters and words on Keller's hand with their fingers. \n\nIn one specific instance, the teacher placed a doll in one of Keller's hands, and then traced the letters D-O-L-L on the palm of her other hand. Eventually Keller would communicate \"doll\" back to her teacher.\n\nThis can be expanded upon to include other objects, verbs, and ideas.",
"There is a newer communication system, Protactile, which came from the Deafblind community. It involves signing in a tactile manner, as well as 'backchannelling\", which is tapping on the speaker's body to indicate you are following, like a sighted person would nod or make noises like hmmmm to indicate being engaged in the conversation. This allows persons with Deafblindness to speak directly with one another. An awesome Deafblind writer, John Lee Clark has very interesting pieces on Tumblr, if you are interested in work by someone who lives this experience. ",
"Helen Keller's autobiography covers this fairly well. She was deafblind from a pre-adolescent age and went on to be tremendously successful.\n\nIt's been a long time since i read that but it essentially involved a form of the tactile signing others have explained, plus a lot of repetition and exposure. She gave the example of being taught the signs to spell the word water, and having her hand placed under running water by her teacher. ",
"Hi, have a look @clarissavollmar on Facebook. I belong to the deaf community myself and follow this family. Clarissa is a deaf-blind child and her family documents how they are raising her. It is very interesting to see their experiences and the family is thorough in explaining their challenges.",
"The documentary film by Weiner Herzog called Land of Silence and Darkness is about a woman who is deafblind teaching other deafblinds how to communicate. It is phenomenal. I wept tears of wonder and inspiration at the lengths to which humans are capable of going to help their fellow humans. \n\n_URL_0_\n\n_URL_1_\n\nRent it. So amazing.",
"I'm a Asl interpreter and have only done tactile deaf blind interpreting once. We practiced it in class a few times but very briefly.. it was an amazing experience.. even after learning asl and the movements involved it can still be tough to distinguish a lot of signs when your eyes are closed and \"blind\".. also it makes your arms tired from the client holding your hands and weighing movements down ha.",
"Can we get a deaf or blind or both person to chime in here? AMA?",
"Everyone in this thread is using deafblind as if it's a well-established word and I've literally never heard it used. ",
"Do children who are born deaf Blind have an age requirement where they are developmentally required to start learning some language before they lose the ability? Im guessing any normal parent would start right away. I'm thinking back to Genie, the girl kept in the room and ignored for years, and other stories of \"feral\" children. Since they didn't learn a language by an early age, they were never truly able to communicate.",
"There is a good Bollywood movie on this subject. It's an Indian movie (Hindi) called Black starring Amitabh Bachchan and Rani Mukherjee. \n\nIn the movie they depict very accurately how deaf blind and mute people are trained and the obstacles they face. Worth a watch. \n\nYou could watch it with English subtitles if you don't understand Hindi. \n\n[IMDb link for Black. ](_URL_0_)"
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2wwv9f | what's the difference between vapor and smoke? | I use electronic cigarettes, and the "vapor" they produce looks and behaves exactly like smoke.
But it isn't smoke.
I can't explain it to people who ask me about this "smoke". Sometimes I say that it's like a mini kettle, boiling the cigarette liquid and producing steam - but it isn't a steam so I don't like using that explanation.
So what exactly is vapor?
Thanks. | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/2wwv9f/eli5_whats_the_difference_between_vapor_and_smoke/ | {
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"Have you ever been to a concert or another place that had a fog machine? That fog is created by heating and vaporizing a mixture of water and a non-toxic chemical. Nothing is burned with fire to make that fog, though it appears to be very smoke-like.\n\nThat is similar to how electronic cigarettes work. They are miniature fog machines, to put it in the simplest terms.",
"Vapor is basically just steam that is the same temperature of the surrounding air (which is why it doesn't burn your mouth). Smoke is a byproduct of combustion. It contains a whole bunch of chemicals but very little water.\n\nVapor is cool and mostly water.\nSmoke is hot and has no water.",
"Smoke is a combusted material, for example, Carbon's molecular structure prevents it from being liquid (without extreme pressure), so when the carbon heats up it sublimates from solid into a gas.\n\nVapor is a created when a liquid \"possesses\" energy. I'll use water as an example, water like other liquid will always expand, when you pour water into the glass it spreads out and fills it. So when water \"receives\" energy the particles are able to do a even better job of spreading out. These particles spreading out and becoming suspended in air is vapor.\n\nA good way to tell the difference is to put some smoke in one sealed jar, and vapor in another. After cooling down, the jar with the smoke will have a layer of ash, while the jar of vapor will have condensation. "
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38nx5r | why are republicans and obama both in support of obamatrade? | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/38nx5r/eli5_why_are_republicans_and_obama_both_in/ | {
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"Because it serves American economic interests. Not the American people, necessarily, but corporations definitely. We want to maintain global economic superiority and giving our megacorps more help with this legislation does that. These trade agreements may not help the average person but it makes us more powerful as a country and Obama recognizes that. Same with NSA spying, sort of. Becoming president probably changes your perspective."
]
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6w0qw5 | why tattoos do not initiate immune system response? | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/6w0qw5/eli5_why_tattoos_do_not_initiate_immune_system/ | {
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"They do (no super cereal though), that's why they fade over time. It's your body \"eating\" the ink and disposing of it. You literally poo out your tattoo.",
"They do. The needle penetrating the skin causes histamine to be produced, thats why the area being worked gets red and swells somewhat. For anything else to happen there need to be antigens present. Those are molecules found for example on bacteria that cause them to stick to certain immune system cells and activate them. The ink molecules are generally too small to do that, though it can happen to some degree. They are so numerous that an actual immune response to them would be harmful to the body anyways. If the needle was unclean, bacteria and other antigens introduced into the tiny wounds will cause an infection and more immune response.",
"This is the reason I can't have tattoo's. See I had a bone marrow transplant, and because of that my immune system is super sensitive. If I had a tattoo, the immune system would turn the area into a leather-like skin that would mess up my tattoo. Which sucks, because I really want one. But hey, its better than being underground.\n\nSo I live through other people's tattoo's. Show them to me and tell me what it means to you. Esp if they are works of art!"
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7vgrdj | before computer databases, how did states keep track of which license plates they already issued? | [deleted] | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/7vgrdj/eli5_before_computer_databases_how_did_states/ | {
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"Well, they used old fashioned paper databases. That's how the world worked before computers were introduced. ",
" > Remember, I’m 5 and don’t know how paper files work.\n\nBut you know what a computer database does???\n\nThey wrote down the license plate numbers and info on paper, and organized them in cabinets."
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3cxf5m | what does bernie sanders stand for and why should i vote for him. | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/3cxf5m/eli5_what_does_bernie_sanders_stand_for_and_why/ | {
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"You should take a look at [ISideWith](_URL_0_), as it will answer your question much easier and more completely than most of us might be able to.\n\nIt's a simple quiz that(make sure you click the \"Show X More\" options in each section), at the end, will tell you how much you agree with each political party and candidates, and gives you a breakdown of what issues you agree/disagree with for a given candidate. ",
"That's a pretty large answer. I'd encourage you to visit /r/sandersforpresident for some more thorough answers, but here's a brief rundown:\n\n--Universal, single-payer healthcare for everyone.\n\n--Removing the influence of money in politics, partially by getting Citizens United overturned.\n\n--Pro gay marriage (not that that's an issue anymore).\n\n--He's big on trying to reduce our impact in terms of climate change.\n\nThere are, of course, others--but again, I encourage you to do some research into it from various different sources.\n\nBut why should you vote for him? If you agree with his positions, that's one reason. But even though I agree with most of his positions, that's not the reason I personally support him. The real reason is that *he's an honest politician,* unlike any I've ever seen. He has a 30 year record of putting his money where his mouth is, of *not* being evasive or disingenuous when he's speaking, and of clearly supporting or clearly opposing whatever his stance on the issue is--unlike most politicians, he doesn't appear to be trying to get as much money as he can from any source he can. That's huge."
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22g474 | why do websites bother having the age date range from the 1800s to present day? | Because a newborn baby wouldn't be registering plus it's really unlikely that the oldest people in the world would be either. | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/22g474/eli5_why_do_websites_bother_having_the_age_date/ | {
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"Because its not very hard (like literally a few button presses) to expand the range. By covering the entire length of options they can't possibly miss anyone. Much easier than having someone complain saying \"I was born in 1899 and that's not an option\".",
"Grizzled/bitter developer here, and there are multiple answers.\n\n*Because the developer is inexperienced/lazy \n*Because this particular date value isn't important so who cares \n*Because you have to deploy 3 other pieces of code today, all without testing so you don't have time to add fiddly refinements \n*Because it is cheaper to fix things only if people complain and otherwise leave them alone \n*Because you are feeling vindictive today so you set it up so they can fill in the whole page, and then if they put in fake data (you are not 4 years old sir) you wipe all their input and throw a big red error message. \n\n\n\n"
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2qscb4 | why was there a west berlin? why didn't east germany just have all of berlin as it was deeply within its boarders? | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/2qscb4/eli5_why_was_there_a_west_berlin_why_didnt_east/ | {
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"Originally, after Germany's defeat in World War II both Berlin and Germany as a whole were temporarily split between the four victorious Allies: France, Britain, the US, and the USSR. Since it was the capital and largest city in Germany, it seemed unfair at the time to give Berlin solely to Russia.\n\nBut when the Cold War intensified the Allies began to turn on each other. France, Britain, and the US combined their sectors to form West Germany and West Berlin. Bonn became the capital of West Germany and West Berlin became a (mostly) free city. The Soviets turned their sectors into East Germany and absorbed them into the Warsaw Pact.",
"East Germany tried to do just that and failed miserably.\n\nAfter WW2, Germany was divided up amongst the 4 post-war victors: US, UK, France, USSR. But since Berlin was the capitol of Germany it was also divided up into 4 sectors.\n\nEventually, the country sections from US, UK, and France became \"West Berlin\" sections. Even though West Berlin was entirely landlocked within \"East Germany\", it was still part of \"West Germany\". The East Germans (controlled by the Soviets) did not like this as their citizens were escaping into West Berlin and there was a lot of espionage occurring. The East Germans built a wall around West Berlin in 1948 (basically overnight) and prevented all road traffic from West Germany to West Berlin. The Berlin Airlift was organized by the western allies to bring in supplies. This continued for about a year, until the East Germans allowed land access to West Germany again. \n\nEDIT: typos"
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5lbkrq | how any human babies survived in early human history | I'm currently being dragged around babies r us by my pregnant wife filling out our registry. So much of the stuff is so concerned with being soft, safe clean etc... Which is good I guess. But when people lived in the woods and caves, how were any babies surviving? I know the infant death rate was high, it just seems impossible to keep the completely fragile and helpless thing that are human infants alive in the cruel environment of early human history. | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/5lbkrq/eli5_how_any_human_babies_survived_in_early_human/ | {
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"My kids and I were watching some two-year-old boy in a restaurant run off while this parents weren't watching. In the old days that boy would have run off into the woods and been eaten by a jaguar/coyote/bear/whatever or died of exposure...or he would have come back as a sneakier, more capable human. Instead he got corralled by a waiter and brought back.",
"Two simple answers: a.) we're social animals. b.) We breed often.\n\nBefore either explanation though, remember that evolution has always been a steadily gradient. And that society as we understand it (even society as ancient people understood it) [has only existed for a blink of an eye](_URL_1_). And that as Kurzgesagt puts it [\"humans only 50,00 years ago were survival specialists\"](_URL_1_ & feature=youtu.be & t=297). Try to shrug off the image of helpless, squishy humans and their vulnerable babies, surrounded by predators in a dense forest. And picture instead rugged, tough, hair-covered humans...with excellent forward-facing colour vision and multi-directional hearing, armed with stone spears. Before that, sharpened rocks. And long before that, powerful arm muscles for [brachiation](_URL_0_). A fearsome opponent for any predator. Particularly in groups, which we *always* came in.\n\nBut on the *we're social animals*, remember that living in well-knit social groups brings very significant advantages when it comes to raising offspring. Many sets of eyes of ears to keep watch for threats. And many sets of arms and teeth that can be bought to bear when one is spotted. But also support structures, where fellow adults can watch over kids collectively while gathering food. Sneaking up on a group of apes is not impossible, but it's fairly difficult.\n\nAnd on the *we breed often*, remember that losses were entirely expected. As such, females would generally be producing as many offspring as resources would allow. To look at chimpanzees, every female produces 5-6 babies each. Losses to injury, disease, predation and accidents, were generally part of the plan.",
"If you look at primitive tribes today, you can see how they keep their babies alive with no modern technology.\n\nTypically the baby is kept either inside the home, or on the mother's body using a kind of cloth hammock such as [this.](_URL_0_)\n",
"Infant death rate was also higher because there were no vaccines, antibiotics, Vicks vapor rub, or socks that were as soft as rabbits fur... but to answer your main question: all the ones that lived.",
"Look at 100 year old graveyards - they're full of children. Many didn't survive.",
"IIRC, back in the day infant mortality rates were so high, they would sometimes wait to name a baby until it turned one year old.",
"Infant mortality was very high, and the human population remained very small, on the edge of extinction. We have evidence of early hominid populations which _did_ go extinct (the Denisovans, for example).\n\nIts civilization which gets homo sapiens out of our precarious state-- by being able to alter the environment, to make it cleaner and safer, to make food supplies more predictable and less diseased, we enabled the growth of the human population.\n",
"The fact that we exist as species said we did keep babies alive. What it can also tell you is why maternal protection is so prevalent, why people tend to be altruistic in their groups, view \"outsiders\" with suspicion and other prominent behaviors. They were very necessary to ensure the survival of babies since they were so vulnerable, those without these traits were less likely to pass thier genes on, which creates a strong selection pressure for these.",
"Babies were not just raised by the mother or father, the whole tribe contributed. A baby was basically always in someone's hands or attached to a body their first year of life. ",
"*Soft, safe, and clean* aren't necessary for human life. Cleanliness helps quite a bit, but softness isn't terribly useful, and *safe* is a relative term. "
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70enf7 | why do some farts feel hot coming out? are they actually a different temperature than normal farts? | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/70enf7/why_do_some_farts_feel_hot_coming_out_are_they/ | {
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"I don't know the for-sure answer, but farts have varying degrees of hydrogen sulfide (H2S) content. Some are mainly just CO2, where others have more of the foul-smelling H2S.\n\nH2S dissolves in water (read: sweat), and is irritating to the skin and mucous membranes when it touches them.\n\nThat much I know, and can guess that the burning from a hot fart is irritation from a higher H2S content.",
"I surprisingly know this. The warm farts are the gasses like hydrogen sulfide created by the decomposition of food in your stomach while the cool ones are just regular air and/or CO2 that happened to be swallowed or trapped in your digestive tract. The warm ones are actually warmer and tend to be much more smelly. ",
"One way you can have excess gas in your digestive system is by swallowing air with your food (or carbon dioxide gas in carbonated drinks). Those farts tend to be the cooler ones.\n\nAnother way you can have excess gas is when bacteria in your gut or large intestine excrete it. Those farts tend to be the hot ones.",
"The potential of limitless knowledge gain from resources around the world that occurs within an instant. \nThis person here is asking the real questions. ",
"Also, do turds push the farts out or are turds pushed out by farts?",
"Has anyone ever answered the question \"why do I like the smell of my own farts - but not other people's?\"",
"I always saw hot farts as warning shots. Your body's like \"oh you think that smells bad? Wait a few minutes, buddy!\"",
"Follow up: which ones make the biggest flames?"
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1jqhng | alimony and child support payments. | It makes no sense to me.
If the woman does not have the means to raise a child, she doesn't have the means to raise a child and should not have any. If the man has no job following a divorce, he's seen as a slacker and a loser - no kids for you. If he *does* have a job, he's seen as too busy and ambitious to care for the children.
Women with jobs are seen as independent and driven, and those traits would be passed onto the kids. Women without jobs are seen as caretakers and they should be able to take on the difficult task of raising children.
I don't understand how our "patriarchal" system throws men under the bus wherever family is concerned. But simultaneously, men have all the power in the world and it's incredibly difficult to get by as a woman? Why is it that a woman "gets" part of a man's paycheck just because they used to be married?
My ex's parents were split up. Her mom made *quite* a bit more than her dad did, but he was still paying *her* for child support *and* alimony, even though they had equal roles with the children. I want to understand, but I can't find any good reason for it.
Hope you can help! | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/1jqhng/eli5_alimony_and_child_support_payments/ | {
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"The US Constitution requires that divorce law be sex-neutral. There's no advantage written into the law for women or special harsh treatment of men -- that would violate Equal Protection of the law. Instead, what you're seeing is the law *usually* benefiting ex-wives, and for good reason. Usually ex-wives are the ones who fairly speaking need the support, so the neutral laws *in practice* result in more orders of alimony from husband to wife, rather than vice versa.\n\nMarriage is a legal institution. The law allows you to run your own lives while you're married. But if you divorce, there are so many contentious points that the law can't stand aside anymore. When you divorce, you're inviting the law into your household management, because those conflicts have to be resolved so that everyone involved can move on with their lives.\n\n\n**Alimony** is purely between the spouses. It's about two things: support and blame. It's partly about support of one ex-spouse -- usually the wife -- who has given up partially or entirely her potential earning capacity to stay home, manage a household, raise kids. It takes time to rebuild a career, so a woman (or stay-at-home husband) needs support, at least temporarily. The other part of alimony is blame: who was at fault for the grounds for divorce. At-fault divorce is pretty rare now that almost every state has no-fault divorce, but alimony as compensation for abusive treatment, adultery, etc are normal.\n\n\n**Child Support** is about one thing only: the best interest of the child (or children). Nothing else. Each parent has to spend a certain amount to support the child. The custodial parent usually just pays out of pocket. The non-custodial parent makes payments to the custodial parent, to be spent on behalf of the child. In most states the amount owed is set by a formula, based on the income of each parent. If income levels change, you can request a change of support payments from the court. Typically it requires a substantial change, and one that was in good faith. So a non-custodial father can't get his child support payments reduced by deliberately quitting a highly-paid job and taking a low-pay one.\n\nYour ex's dad didn't cease to be her father just because he divorced her mom. He made LESS than the mom, not nothing. In a married family, money is exchanged freely and either parent can wind up paying the costs of raising a child. In a divorced family, the law makes sure BOTH parents are paying to support the kids.\n\n\nNote that payment or nonpayment of alimony or child support aren't legally related to **parental visitation** or **shared custody**. However behind a person is in paying, the child and parent still deserve to see each other. So if the custodial parent refuses to allow a lawful visit, the non-custodial parent can go to the court. If the non-custodial parent isn't paying, the custodial parent's proper action is to go to the court -- not to cut off access to the child.",
" > If the woman does not have the means to raise a child, she doesn't have the means to raise a child and should not have any.\n\nThe only thing here is that when I was married, we had 2 incomes to support the kids. After the divorce, it's now just mine, almost 1/2. Now, yes we've made many concessions and live within our means but my ex has barely made any payments and has no drive to get a real job.\n\nWhen it comes to things like school season, you're looking at around an extra $150 per child to get supplies and clothes (they're growing quite quickly now).\n\nGiven that my ex has done nothing to help in any way possible with the financial aspects of raising the kids, what justification does anyone have to say what I just quoted from you?\n",
" > Why is it that a woman \"gets\" part of a man's paycheck just because they used to be married?\n\nBecause that's what being married is, a merging of assets into one legal entity. She doesn't get a part of \"his\" paycheck, she gets a part of \"their\" paycheck.\n\nAnd you may be confusing two separate things, child support and alimony.\n\nChildren cost money, and the custodial parent will bear most of those costs. The non-custodial parent has to contribute in the form of child support, regardless of relative incomes.\n\nAlimony is awarded when one spouse makes a lot less money than the other, and was deemed to have forgone a career to keep house and raise children. If it was as you described, your ex's mother was more likely to pay alimony than to receive it. More likely wasn't getting alimony at all, just child support. If she was, she likely was making less at the time of the divorce, but their situations changed after. Another possibilities is that alimony was awarded punitively because he was determined to be the main cause of the divorce. \n\n",
"The screwing you get for the screwing you got."
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9wubly | what were the components of the housing crisis? | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/9wubly/eli5_what_were_the_components_of_the_housing/ | {
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"You're going to want to do a lot more reading than a basic ELI5 if you actually want to understand it, but to put it in a relatively simple way:\n\n1. Investors always want to maximize their return on their funds. There's always a push to find high yield yet 'safe' investments. Investors don't like sitting on their cash and there's always a demand for investment opportunity. When there's a lot of cash hunting for investment opportunity, credit becomes easy to get.\n\n2. Easy credit means lower rates on loans, since loans were (and are) repackaged and sold to investors. Thus began a national drive to sell people homes, as each mortgage sold represented more investment opportunity. Banks and funds seized on home mortgage loans as a way to 'safely' get returns on investor capital, as home valuations historically rise at a steady rate.\n\n3. The incentives to sell homes caused a massive explosion in homebuilding and a loosening of risk analysis, as many people who were not financially qualified to buy homes were given loans anyway. Loans were no longer judged on their individual safety (i.e. was that individual more or less likely to make their repayment), but were cut up and blended into general investment vehicles (collateralized debt obligation), which received spurious 'safe' ratings from investment grading agencies. People who bought into the system would take out loans that were dangerous, on the basis of refinancing the home later at a safe interest rate (or simply selling it once the house appreciated a bit). This was a game of musical chairs.\n\n4. The worst performant loans (including many loans given to people who literally had no income) start to default and the collateral homes get foreclosed on, causing housing valuations to begin their collapse. This causes a chain reaction in the CDOs as the CDOs no longer were returning their expected value. This caused a massive banking panic and froze the availability of credit, which caused an economic crash that caused the marginal home mortgages to fail as people lost jobs, which further depressed home values and caused a cascading effect.\n\nThere are many books and videos and movies you can consume on this topic.",
"Lenders lent too much money to people who shouldn’t have borrowed it. Investors invested too much money with lenders that shouldn’t have had it. This made home values appear better than they were which further fueled the problems. Eventually borrowers couldn’t pay their lenders who couldn’t pay their investors."
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4f9kjy | why do we have to exhale air when speaking? | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/4f9kjy/eli5_why_do_we_have_to_exhale_air_when_speaking/ | {
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"Sound is just vibrations in the air. When we want to speak, we force air past our vocal folds, and this makes the vibrations we know as our voice. \n\nThere are three possible scenarios:\n\n(1) If your vocal folds are completely open, you will inhale and exhale without vibrating them. This is normal breathing.\n\n(2) If your vocal folds are partially closed, they will vibrate due to the air being pushed past them--this is what happens when you speak. They can take different conformations to produce different pitches and our full range of vocal sounds.\n\n(3) If your vocal folds are totally closed, you will not be able to inhale or exhale. You can still try, but nothing will happen. (This is actually important when pooping, trying to exhale against closed vocal folds will increase the pressure in your chest and push everything out. If you're curious, pay attention next time you're on the toilet.)\n\nNote: You can, theoretically, speak while inhaling as well. However, it would sound rather different and would not be as loud. But nevertheless, it's theoretically possible.\n\nTL;DR: Your voice is just sound (i.e., vibrations in the air) created when you push air past your vocal folds."
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6xtfs1 | why do you have a deeper/raspier voice, after a night out drinking? is it just an extended morning voice that lasts all day? | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/6xtfs1/eli5_why_do_you_have_a_deeperraspier_voice_after/ | {
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"Cause you usually talk louder when you are drunk, putting extra strain on your vocal cords\n ",
"Except that you usually have to shout at the places that we usually drink, alcohol is a muscle relaxant, and the more relaxed the voice cords are, the deeper they sound.",
"I don't spend much time in bars, but when I have, I've usually had to almost shout to be heard by the people around me over the music or whatever.\n\nIt's surprising how fast my voice degrades when I'm constantly having to speak loudly. Cigarette smoke and alcohol probably contribute somewhat as well.",
"I'm gonna go with.. you've been soaking your vocal cords in alcohol?"
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5sfwwq | why were milkmen once a thing in america, and why did they stop being a thing? | The Milkman is a standard feature in the image of a wholesome, idyllic mid 20th-century America. However, having been born in the 90s, it's only a thing I've seen in cartoons and old media. Was milk hard to store in markets or something? Why did daily milk deliveries used to be a thing, and when and why was it phased out? | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/5sfwwq/eli5_why_were_milkmen_once_a_thing_in_america_and/ | {
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"The Milkman was a thing prior to the widespread availability of residential refrigeration. Prior to having refrigerators, homes were lucky if they had an icebox. Warm milk spoils quickly, hence the regular deliveries from the milk man.",
"Milkmen have been a thing since long before refrigeration existed. You can even see it in things like \"Fiddler on the Roof\" which is set in the early 1900s and it was a well established job for a long time before that point. \n\nThe local dairy would deliver milk every day to people who could not raise their own cows (such as city folk) and they would also sell things like butter to them. After refrigeration was developed the job still remained a fixture for a few decades because stores were not built to have large refrigerated and freezer sections. But after enough time passed new Stores were designed to have a lot of refrigerated stuff and people started to buy their milk from stores and the home delivery model became too expensive for the dairy to use as it used too many workers. ",
"* more families had cars, had two cars, and had homemakers who could drive\n* refrigeration meant that milk could last for a week or two, rather than just a few days\n* cars and refrigeration lead to supermarkets and a culture of buying a lot of food all at once rather than a little food every day or two...buying and selling in bulk made getting milk there a cheaper alternative\n\nThere are still plenty of dairies that deliver, but it is considered more of a premium product that you have to pay a good deal extra for."
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czg9t7 | why does popcorn that's popped from the bag taste stale a few hours later, while pre-popped popcorn will taste good for weeks or months at a time? | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/czg9t7/eli5_why_does_popcorn_thats_popped_from_the_bag/ | {
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"It's a combinations of factors. Firstly 'preservatives' such as Citric Acid which helps keep the oil from turning bad, it's the same thing that's in oranges which keeps those from going bad. Secondly the fat that's used in pre-popped popcorn is often trans-fat which doesn't spoil as easily but is unhealthier. And lastly the inside of the inside of the popcorn bag is coated in chemicals that keep moisture from escaping the bag, keeping it from going stale."
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2m2fs7 | i understand that only around 35 percent of the populace votes, but what would actually change if 100 percent voted? | I do mean 100% of those allowed to vote in America. You would still be confronted with one of two approved packages. Two packages that are really hard to distinguish between. I just hear all the time how it's my responsibility to vote, but I don't understand how it really makes any difference. I don't mean that it makes no difference because I'm 1 voice out of 200 million. I mean it doesn't make a difference because out of 200 million choosers, I only get two choices. | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/2m2fs7/eli5_i_understand_that_only_around_35_percent_of/ | {
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"Turnouts above 90% are rare in countries without compulsory voting (or countries with a history of compulsory voting), but also tend to be accompanied by strong electoral infrastructure - making it easier to vote. \n\nPeople (democrats especially) would complain less about disenfranchisement and voter ID laws. \n\nHigher turnouts may lead to less extremism in how campaigns are run (and the USA - which is where I'm assuming you're from - is in a state of perpetual campaigning) as parties shift their strategy from \"getting out the vote\" to appealing to the middle swing voters.\n\nThere's some evidence that in the United States than an increased turnout would initially lead to more democrat victories, however I expect that this would decrease over time as the Republican (and Democrat) parties adjusted their strategies and policies to a new higher turnout paradigm. Overall the country and both parties policies could move (somewhat) to the left.\n\nHigher turnout is also an indication of higher political engagement which is associated with more accurate knowledge on political issues - which could lead to better, more representative policymaking overall and a lower influence of special interest groups and lobbyists.",
"The choices would change.\n\nDemographically, most people who don't vote skew liberal. More liberals voting would me more liberals elected, and both parties would have to shift in that direction to get elected."
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326siw | why can't planes have a streaming black box that is constantly uploaded so that it can be accessed immediately after an accident? | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/326siw/eli5_why_cant_planes_have_a_streaming_black_box/ | {
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"Because that would cost many millions of dollars to do, and as black boxes are rarely unrecoverable, the costs outweigh the benefits.",
"Where does the data get streamed to? How long is it stored? What radio frequencies do you use? How many planes are flying at once? How do you make sure that the radio signals with not interfere with all the other planes that are simultaneously flying? How do you make sure that the signals don't interfere with other communications networks? How much does the additional hardware cost (in the planes, on the ground, or on satellites)? How do you get both the airplane manufacturers and owners to upgrade their systems (given the absolutely massive cost of upgrading an entire fleet)? How do you standardize the hardware so that it can be used by the huge variety of planes that are used? How do you deal with both national and international regulations? etc...\n\nDon't get me wrong, this stuff is probably being worked on (I would assume so), but it isn't as easy as just slapping a cloud-based box in a handful of planes and saying \"job done\"."
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3trvgq | why do web pages for cancelling services load at a fraction of the speed of the rest of the page? | [deleted] | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/3trvgq/eli5_why_do_web_pages_for_cancelling_services/ | {
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"I feel like you should be able to work this one out on your own. \n\nThe company you're unsubscribing from probably doesn't like people canceling their subscription. "
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devg78 | why is “no.” a common shorthand for “number” in english when there is no “o” in the word “number”? | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/devg78/eli5_why_is_no_a_common_shorthand_for_number_in/ | {
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"text": [
"Hi; its not actually a an O, but even if, the shorthand is called numero -- so it has an O. Source: _URL_0_",
"its a latin shorthand for ‘numero’ — similar to ‘?’ which is shorthand for ‘quaestio’ or question\n\nedit: as a result of writing this answer i checked my facts on this and it seems the ‘qo’ for ‘?’ thing is a possible but not particularly substantiated theory ... a good example i know is correct is probably ñ - > nn but it doesn’t really do a whole word unfortunately \n\nsee: _URL_0_",
"It is for the same reason pound is abbreviated as lb (from Latin libra) and ounce as oz (from ltalian onza). English borrows a lot of words from other languages. In this case, the abbreviation \"no.\" for the word \"number\" comes from the numero symbol, N° (also written as \"No\" or \"no.\"), which is in turn derived from Latin numero. As you can see, it has an o in it.\n\n-Nipun Sher, _URL_0_",
"Wikipedia says it's from the numero sign №, the origins of that are a bit unclear. It's supposed to be a combination of N for number and the Ordinal Indicator º to represent a number, but I think it's more likely just a shorthand for the latin 'numero'. \n\nThe ordinal indicator º isn't used much in English, we tend to use 2nd, 3rd etc, but you do sometimes see it (e.g. in a museum as '16º Century BC' or music as in '5º Concerto in B Minor'. \n\nIt doesn't quite seem to add up to me though, as the ordinal indicator indicates, well, that it's an Ordinal number, like 1st, 2nd, 3rd etc, rather than a Cardinal, like 1, 2, 3 etc. But normally when we say No. we mean either. (e.g. 'His finishing place was no. 7', 'Tel. No. 01654797531') Not sure quite how that leads to Nº. It may just be a shorthand of the latin 'numero' that's made it's way into our lexicon.",
"It’s from French “Nombre”, meaning Number. England was under the control of Norman French for 320 or so years. It kinda stuck.",
"To add to what’s been said already, in German it’s “Nr.” which comes from the German word of number “Nummer”.",
"Why is @ not short for around? It's probably longer to write than at with a t.",
"Number comes from the Latin Numero. Cutting out all of the middle letters, we get the abbreviation of No."
]
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2eold8 | how do certain companies acquire/keep a monopoly over a market (without the use of patents)? what's stopping others from providing a similar service and equalling the market place? | Given that most companies that have pretty much created a Monopoly are widely hated, why can't another company provide better services? They have the consumer base | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/2eold8/eli5_how_do_certain_companies_acquirekeep_a/ | {
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"Once a company gets bigger and well-known, it's hard for a new, little company convince the public that it's better, especially when most people are already using the first one (that means they would have to unsubscribe). Remember publicity costs a lot of money."
]
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4y0w17 | how did original computers translate the input? | I understand computers are super complex, and all the current functions are built upon layers and layers of more complexity, but how did the first computer translate the first input? | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/4y0w17/eli5_how_did_original_computers_translate_the/ | {
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"text": [
"The first input did not need to be translated; people programmed directly in binary. For example, machines controlled by punch cards where each position may have a punched hole or not."
]
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|
881vmd | why is it better to only pay off part of my monthly credit card statement instead of all of it? | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/881vmd/eli5_why_is_it_better_to_only_pay_off_part_of_my/ | {
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"That's wrong. Pay off the whole thing. Avoid the interest. Whoever told you that doesn't know what they are talking about. ",
"I haven't heard that advice, all you're doing is giving the credit card companies more money. Pay off your card in full every month unless you can't afford to.",
"People think that it's not really considered \"using\" your credit card if you don't get charged interest. They say you won't improve your credit score that way, since you're not really using your card. Those people are wrong. I pay my card off in full every week rather than every month, and my credit score keeps improving."
]
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87hvc0 | how can sound "break" something solid? | For reference:
_URL_0_
My question is based on this gif and the subsequent video as well as comments like "liquefying the ground" and "sound suppression system". How can sound in this instance do potentially catastrophic damage?
Apologies if my linking is bad I'm doing this on a phone at 12am and I'm quite new to reddit and this sub! | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/87hvc0/eli5_how_can_sound_break_something_solid/ | {
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"Sound is vibration - motion. Imagine bending something back and forth for a while, it will eventually break. Sound waves will bend anything they hit thousands of times per second. Eventually objects give in to the stress and break. The louder the sound the stronger the bending and the quicker it breaks. ",
"All objects are made of atoms (imagine small marbles that are tightly packed together). Atoms have energy, so they vibrate all the time, though this vibration is obviously unnoticeable to us. \n\nEach object has something called a natural frequency. This is essentially the speed at which the atoms vibrate by themselves, without anything else causing them to vibrate. The word we use to describe this is a 'free oscillation'.\n\nThe opposite of a free oscillation is a forced oscillation-- you're basically using another source of vibration to make atoms vibrate. Sound is the vibration of air. When you have a forced oscillation at the same frequency as the natural frequency of the atoms vibrating (so basically your sound 'vibrates' at the same rate as the atoms), the two 'vibrators' (ik) resonate, causing them to basically vibrate harder.\n\nThis harder vibration causes bonds to break and therefore the object breaks."
]
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[],
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4e27l3 | why is that people with good singing voices (ariana grande, bruno mars, christina aguilera) can imitate other voices or singers so easily? | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/4e27l3/eli5_why_is_that_people_with_good_singing_voices/ | {
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"One of the reasons is that some people simply have better control over their voice. A lot of people can impersonate someone and recognize what they're ding that sounds wrong, but lack the ability to fix it. ",
"IMO, most musicians grew up impersonating other singers as they grew up. Just like most garage bands start off doing cover songs. \n\nAlso, confirmation bias. You are not paying attention to less famous singers who do great covers. \n\nSide note: most singer/songwriters I know are terrible at karaoke. Those who write their own music have worked on honing their own voice/sound so they aren't as good at copying others. ",
"I think it's more that people with great control over their voices usually have not much trouble with singing either."
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2filfp | how come when i slap a fly in mid-flight it can keep on going like nothing happened? how much force would it take to make it explode on impact and can i do it? | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/2filfp/eli5_how_come_when_i_slap_a_fly_in_midflight_it/ | {
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"So picture this - a small boat floating in the ocean...little tiny two-seater boat. All a sudden this gigantic fucking oil tanker comes right at it...in front of the tanker there is a swell of water, so just before the tanker hits, the small boat will start deflecting on the swell before the actual ship hits, lessening the impact....this is the comparison of the \"swell\" of air that your hand produces\n\nNow, take that small boat and make it another tanker..the swell of water won't move it hardly at all so the tanker-to-tanker impact will be devastating...this is the comparison to mass - the smaller the boat, the more the swell will affect it.\n\nSame thing with your hand and a fly. Your hand is a tanker and the fly is that little boat. You may hit it, but the \"swell\" gets it moving away just before impact, lessening it. Conversely, if that fly weighed 2lbs, the swell of air wouldn't affect it and you'd hit it harder causing more damage.\n\nTo answer the second part of your question, unless you're hitting a 2lb fly with an iron hand the size of a pencil moving at 1,000 mph, no, you're probably not going to explode a fly no matter how cool of a party trick that would be"
]
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1jg1wx | satanic worship | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/1jg1wx/eli5_satanic_worship/ | {
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"Modern satanism is just a funny way to troll Christians big time. ",
"\"Satanists\" dont even believe in satan, let alone worship him.\n\nIt's basically a philosophy of denying religious principals like judgement, an afterlife, a soul etc etc.\n\nSatanist have the belief of \"If you want to do it, do it\" \n\nImagine YOLO was an actual ethos"
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a91qg7 | why do middle-eastern houses normally have flat roofs while other countries upside down v shaped? | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/a91qg7/eli5_why_do_middleeastern_houses_normally_have/ | {
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"Middle eastern homes don’t have to deal with the snowfall. The flat roof also helps with collecting rain water. In places that get snow they have V shapes so the snow slides off and doesn’t build up on the roof and cause it to collapse. Thirdly is material. A lot of middle eastern homes are made of brick, with timber being in short supply. It’s much easier to make a framed home out of wood than brick. ",
"The V shape helps deal with heavy rain and snow, something most parts of the Middle East don’t have to worry about ",
"Snow and rain, countries with little to no rain and no snow can use a flat roof which is easier to build, an inverted v roof is for support so snow doesn't collapse it and rain falls off easily ",
"In countries that have snow you have peaked (v shaped) roofs so that the snow does not collect deep enough to collapse the roof. That is not necessary in countries that do not get snow, though you do still have to have proper drainage so that you do not get leaks. But that too is not much of a problem in most of the Middle East due to low annual rainfall numbers. Additionally historically people would sleep on their roofs at night to be cooler and having a flat roof made that easier. "
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1n6yg9 | how to torrent and how to torrent safely. | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/1n6yg9/eli5how_to_torrent_and_how_to_torrent_safely/ | {
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" > How to torrent:\n\nInstall a torrent client, and go to torrent sites, click the magnetic link and add to the torrent client's queue.\n\n > How to torrent safely:\n\nDepends on what you are worried is going to endanger you?\n\n > Virus!\n\nCheck the comment section for the torrent, or get a virus scanner that lets you inspect individual files\n\n > RIAA/Government\n\nVPN's, PPP tunnels, Seed Boxes. Most this stuff is beyond the 'average internet' users grasp and would need a ELI5 just on the subject.\n\nBasically you set up a computer remotely in another country that has more liberal copyright laws (or pay to have it set up for you), and you torrent on that computer then transfer the files from that computer (in another country) back to you.",
"Pay for protection. Many companies offer the use of a VPN to mask torrenting activities (I'm assuming you are in a war torn country with an oppressive government you're attempting to overthrow by downloading the most recent episodes of breaking bad). \n\nAnyway, pay 6 bucks a month and use a private network through a self made Virtual Machine. "
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2sbu9x | why don't electric guitars need to be plugged on a power outlet? | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/2sbu9x/eli5_why_dont_electric_guitars_need_to_be_plugged/ | {
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"Technically they are.\nThey plug into an amp which is generally plugged into a socket.",
"The guitar is basically like a microphone, but instead of picking up vibrations in the air and producing electrical signals, the pickup detects the vibration of the strings. The amp, which is plugged in, then amplifies those small electrical signals.",
"If you don't plug the amp in to the power outlet, it's not an electric guitar... It's just a guitar.\n\nBut more seriously, I'm guessing you are asking why the guitar itself doesn't need power, only the amp. It's because the guitar is essentially just a microphone (kind of). The amp is what amplified the sound and makes it louder. ",
"Well i'm not sure if i do understand your question 100%. I'll just tell you three answers. \n\n1. To really get anything out of them you need an amplifier that is plugged in. So technically the guitar is plugged in the amplifier and people even got electrocuted by playing guitar (malfunctions...).\n\n\n2. Even without an amplifier an electric guitar is very similar to an acoustic guitar. Strings, a wooden body (most of the time) and some mechanics to tune them. This allows it to just work like an acoustic guitar. You pull the strings and it gives you some music. It's just rather silent because the body isn't optimized to amplify the sound (i talk about a classic electrical guitar).\n\n\n3. Magnets, the reason why your guitar doesn't need any batteries to work. They just have the magnetic field that you need to generate a current. When the srings move through the magnetic field they change it and this induces a current in the coils (which are hidden in your pickups). This generates a very small current that you couldn't use to power a speaker, but enough to put it into an amplifier. Since the current is rather small, it's always good to use high quality cables and connectors just so you don't get any noise on it (Or just put your cellphone away while playing guitar, should be good enough for most of us).\n\n\nBut than again there are exceptions to almost all of those points. The world of guitars is ridiculous and if you ever have the opportunity to go into a really big music store take it and check out the guitars there. There's like a million and some of them have close to nothing in common with a classical guitar. And they don't just change the look or material, they change the technology or even take away the strings. Building guitars is art and it's hard to say anything that applies to all of them. Against point one you could show some acoustic guitars with inbuilt mics, they work great with or without amplifier some even have build in equalizers. The second point you could argue that today there are even string-less digital guitars, so really nothing does apply for them. And last but not least there are active pick ups that need you to put a battery in your guitar to work. So really there isn't a right answer and you could probably even find a guitar that you have to plug in because it has some fancy things build in it. ",
"Passive pickups are permanent magnets: the vibrating steel strings will send a weak electrical signal without the need for electrical power (you provide the energy by physically striking the pickups and the vibrating steel over the magnets creates a weak current). You only need power to make that weak signal loud (amplify it) - that's why you need to power the amplifiers, but not the guitar.\n\nThat said there are also active pickups which do require electricity - they're usually battery-powered though. These are ubiquitous in semi-accoustic instruments and common in full-electric guitars as well.\n\n_URL_0_"
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3z2vsi | how did hollywood become the center for the entertainment business? | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/3z2vsi/eli5_how_did_hollywood_become_the_center_for_the/ | {
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"According to Wikipedia, Thomas Edison's held the patent on the kinetiscope, and his company, located in New York, was relentless in shutting down unauthorized use, by lawsuit or seizure. To escape this, many producers moved out west, where his patent laws couldn't be enforced. They settled on Southern California because of its ideal weather and easy access to a variety of settings (beach, desert, mountains, etc.). Some of the first studios were set up in hollywood, and the industry grew from there.\n\nMore details can be found [here](_URL_0_).",
"Thomas Edison had patents for film equipment and so film producers went to California since it was far away from Edison so it was harder for Edison to exercise his control of the patent and get royalties. Also California judges were less friendly to the patents awarded to Edison ."
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1ru88w | how does computer works ? how is it possible that we see stuff on your screen thanks to binary? why is it possible for us to write with letters when a computer is based on number? | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/1ru88w/eli5_how_does_computer_works_how_is_it_possible/ | {
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"A processor is comprised of transistors which make an off or on (0 or 1) state depending if there is a current flowing through it. It is able to do this because a transistor is made from silicone which is a semiconductor.\n\nThese gates can be arranged in various ways which make gates. You can have lots of different gates but the main ones are and, or and not gates. \n\nIn an and gate, there are two inputs and one output. If the two inputs are a 1, the out put is a 1, anything else is 0. \n\nWith a or gate, there are two inputs and one output. If either one of the inputs is 1 the output is 1. If both of them are 0, you get 0.\n\nWith a not gate, there is one input and one output. Whatever the input is, the output is the opposite. So a 1 will become a 0 and a 0 will become a 1.\n\nYou can have variations of these like xor, nor, nand but that's more advanced.\n\nWith these gates, you can put multiple together to make tasks such as adders to add two binary numbers together. These can then to simple arithmetic.\n\nAs for posting with letters when your computer works with numbers, your keyboard has a number for each letter and key. When you press the key the number is sent to your computer where the computer matches the number to a number on a character set such as ASCII or Unicode. ",
"Specifically about monitor:\n\nProcessor sends bit to one of his output ports, and device on other screen interprets them, for example (simplified, doesn't really work that way), for black-and-white screen, processor sends 1111100110011111, and 4x4 display simply shows you white 2x2 square.\n\nManufacturers agreed on specifications how to communicate and interpret different signals between devices (HDMI, VGA - are different way to tell screen what to do)",
"Yes, this thread is a week old and dead, but these answers are not exactly what I'd call simple, so I'm gonna have a crack, if you don't mind.\n\n_______________\n\nImagine you had 8 empty boxes, and some bowling balls that would fit in the boxes. For some reason, you decide you want to count using the boxes and bowling balls - every time you drop a ball in a box that's 1.\n\nSo here you are counting to 8, and it's awesome, but you want to count higher and you can't afford any more boxes. So what you do now is quite clever: you decide that each box can have a different value. You can still only put in one ball, but instead of every box just being zero or one, now box two can be zero or two, box three can zero or four, and so on, doubling the value until box eight is zero or 128. \n\nIf you put a ball in some of the boxes, all you do to get the number is add up all the values of boxes with a bowling ball inside. \n\n 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1\n [ ] [ ] [X] [ ] [ ] [X] [ ] [X] \n 128 64 32 16 8 4 2 1\n\nSo this number is **32 + 4 + 1 = 37**. In exactly the same way, we could also write this as **00100101**, with a zero signifying an empty box and a 1 signifying a box with a bowling ball inside.\n\nThis is binary counting. So while 1 in binary is 1 in decimal (our everyday number system), 10 in binary is actually 2 in decimal. And now you can participate in the classic joke:\n\n > There are 10 types of people in this world: Those who can count in binary and those who can't.\n\nSo what does this have to do with computers? Well this is simplified version of what we are talking about when we say the \"memory\" of a computer, except it has literally trillions of boxes in all different places. The RAM of a computer is just a set of boxes that get emptied every time you turn off the computer, and the hard drive is a set of boxes that *don't* get emptied when you turn off.\n\nOK, that's cool, and easy enough. But what about letters? Well let's go back to our boxes for a minute. The highest number we can make with 8 boxes is just the same as having a ball in every box, right? So that's 128 + 64 + 32 + 16 + 8 + 4 + 2 + 1 = **255**. But technically, no balls in any box is also a number: namely zero. So that means there are **256** possible numbers with 8 boxes. \n\nWith that in mind, imagine all the letters of the english alphabet, A to Z. There are 26 of them. Now you and me are playing a game where we pretend that the letters of the alphabet are actually numbers like A = 1, B = 2, C = 3, and so on until Z = 26. Now if I write you a message like:\n\n > 8 9 [SPACE] 20 8 5 18 5\n\nYou would know I actually mean \"HI THERE\". But we know about binary counting too now, so why don't we get in there and remake the number message, this time with binary. And for the hell of it, you and I decide that space is the same as the number 27 (we could choose any number here though), since it's the first number after the alphabet, so our final message is:\n\n > 00001000 00001001 00011011 00010100 00001000 00000101 00001010 00000101\n\nThat is how computers deal with letters, symbols, and numbers. The only difference is which number maps to which letter/symbol, but this is as arbitrary as you and I decided A = 1. A *doesn't actually* equal one, but as long as you and I (and anyone else that wants to understand our code) are concerned, those are the same thing. If you want to look into the different number mapping standards (and some of them are very very clever), check out ASCII (old) and UTF-8 (new, awesome and super clever)."
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fu2gen | how does a missile calculate it's deviation and where it shouldn't be? | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/fu2gen/eli5_how_does_a_missile_calculate_its_deviation/ | {
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"Start small, understand 3D positioning:\n\n_URL_0_\n\nThen understand GPS, which is much more complex but essentially the same, 3D Geometry once you know points in space is trivial.\n\nBut there's a lot underlying GPS to get to this point.\n\nHave fun!"
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1xfwi1 | sometimes when we yawn, why do certain ones cause us to stretch and reach toward the sky which feels like our soul is being sucked from our body...and results in a yell? | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/1xfwi1/eli5_sometimes_when_we_yawn_why_do_certain_ones/ | {
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"text": [
"Idk why but those yawns when u reach the sky and yell are fucking awesome",
"No idea but just reading that made me yawn",
"This is called *pandiculation*. It's thought to be a way for the body to realign and stretch the myofascial system (the soft tissue that surrounds and connects muscles and other organs). ",
"Does anyone else get this when they fluff heavy blankets? My boyfriend wonders if it's slight OCD, but I think it's more a combo of the weight of the blanket and throwing your hands in the air. Makes me have to stop and stretch like this almost every time."
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4yoh6v | why do delivery truck drivers wear high visibility jackets? | I don't know if this is an international regulation but in South Africa I always see truck drivers for large supermarket chains wear high visibility jackets. | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/4yoh6v/eli5_why_do_delivery_truck_drivers_wear_high/ | {
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"I would assume it has to do with Health & Safety regulations and legislation, I'm not sure about South Africa but in the UK, Health & Safety dictates that employees working in certain professions need to take certain precautions in their job, one of which could be the need for protective or high visibility clothing.\n\nI would imagine truck drivers wear high visibility jackets so that other drivers can see them clearly, being in truck yards and delivery depots, they walk around large vehicles with many blind spots, so to minimize the risk of getting run over they wear clothing that makes them as visible as possible :)",
"Most transport truck drivers do out of safety.\n\nThe area where trucks are stored, they load and unload goods, and the sides of roads where they might need to make emergency stops are not often well-lit. Because of this they wear high visibility safety vests so no one accidentally runs them over.",
"They wear them as a precaution. Your employer is responsible for anything that happen to you while you are working, so any sensible employer would avoid the hassle of having a driver hit by another truck by at the very least ensure that they are easier to see.\nGive them a jacket, because it is such an easy thing to do that make their job a lot safer.\n\nMany countries have regulations on high visibility clothes for roadworks and some industrial complexes have high visibility clothes as a requirement along with a safety helmet.\n\nConsidering what you achieve with just a jacket, it's really a very cheap life insurance.",
"I work at a shipping and receiving warehouse and it's company policy that anybody entering the facility needs high visibility clothing on, due to the towmotors driving around and such. This rule also extends to outside our dock area where there's other semi trucks driving around. It's just because as a truck driver your typically going to be in situations where you want to be visible and not ran over by something",
"to decrease the risk of an accident while they are walking around in parking lots etc and there are other drivers driving trucks. "
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bsxpmc | why dont sperm banks keep sperm warm like our bodies do rather than freezing it? | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/bsxpmc/eli5_why_dont_sperm_banks_keep_sperm_warm_like/ | {
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"Freezing it puts it into a sort of suspended animation and preserves it. If they kept it warm then they would live their natural very short life cycle as cells (about 5 days) and without testes resupply while in the bank it makes collecting it in the first place useless. Being stored warm also makes it more likely to be contaminated with atmospheric bacteria and fungi.",
"Your body is actually trying to keep your sperm cool, that's why your balls hang outside your body.\n\nUnlike a sperm bank though, your body constantly produces sperm to replace the existing sperm that degrades and 'dies'. Since the sperm bank can't do that, they freeze your sperm instead."
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55tikj | why do old movies have that signature soft glow around the actors when up close? | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/55tikj/eli5_why_do_old_movies_have_that_signature_soft/ | {
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"I'm sure you've been waiting for 3 months for this... :)\n\nThe simple answer? Because people thought it looked pretty. Still do.\n\nWhat you're referring to is lens diffusion, which came into common use in the early 1920s. As with a lot of new technologies, people went a little crazy with it (especially in the mid-1920s and the 1930s), but it's still widely done today. \n\nGenerally, it's done one of two ways: using a glass filter that slides in front of the lens, or with a \"net\" that's placed behind the lens. The \"net\" is actually pantyhose. A lot of cinematographers swear by Fogal, an old and very high-quality Swiss brand of stockings. Both of these approaches create a haze in the light and also make the brightest points glow. One difference is that nets tend to create rainbow halos around these highlights.\n\nHere's a modern-ish example in MINORITY REPORT, which makes a lot of use of net diffusion, mostly using Fogal stockings, IIRC: _URL_0_\n\nOne thing to remember is that old films tended to use fairly long (100mm) lenses for all close-ups, which tend to exaggerate the effects of diffusion. Basically, we've just gotten subtler about this stuff.",
"Back in the day, there was no HD, so it was easy to hide wrinkles by using a lot of light on close ups and smearing the camera lens with vaseline to blur the wrinkles out. "
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||
1xg2m6 | a gun fires a bullet at the exact moment you drop a bullet from the same height. which bullet hits the ground first? | Question
A gun fires a bullet at the exact moment you drop a bullet from the same height. Which bullet hits the ground first?
Answers
1. The bullet fired from the gun
2. The bullet dropped from the fired gun barrel height
3. Both hit the ground at the same time
I believe the correct answer is 3, but I'm having trouble understanding *why*
Also what is the concept in physics? (I hope I'm wording that correctly) | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/1xg2m6/eli5_a_gun_fires_a_bullet_at_the_exact_moment_you/ | {
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"In a vacuum, both will land at essentially the same time, depending on local topography.\n\nThe reason is that vertical acceleration and horizontal velocity aren't necessarily linked.\n\nGravity is pulling both objects downward with the same force, regardless of their forward velocity.\n\nIn an atmosphere you may have air turbulence effects that slightly alter the result.",
"it depends on what angle you fire the gun, and the height of drop/gun.\n \nMytbusters did an episode on this. \n_URL_0_",
"In principle, both hit the ground at the same rate. \n\nAll objects fall at the same rate, roughly 32.1 f/s^2, regardless of their mass. The bullet fired from the gun is going very fast horizontally, but vertically it is falling at the same rate as the other bullet.\n\nIf you start factoring in things like wind resistance, curvature of the earth, etc it can get more complicated. But basic physics says the correct answer is (3).",
"you are correct.\n\nthey hit the ground at the same time, so long as the gun is fired horizontally.\n\nthe reason is because the bullet fired from the gun generates no lift. \nso despite its forward momentum, gravity accelerates it towards the ground at the same rate as the bullet dropped at a standstill.",
"The unspoken assumptions are for the gun to fire the bullet in a perfectly horizontal direction, anf that you release the other bullet without exerting any force on it.\n\nIn that case the answer is 3, both hit the ground at the same time. As soon as the bullet leaves the gun, and as soon as you release the bullet from your hand, the force of gravity starts to work on both bullets. It adds an identical vertical component to the acceleration and velocity to both bullets, so that both will be affected equally and reach the ground at the same moment.",
"In an ideal physics world, with a perfectly flat earth and no atmospheric resistance, both would hit the ground at the same height because downwards acceleration due to gravity is always the same."
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7norvi | how come we haven't run out of various resources | Think about the billions of people around the world, then the billions of various things that are built for them and the things they consume.
How come we haven't run out of some essentials yet? Like things used in construction, things used in manufacturing cars or cell phones or some other stuff.
It's just mind boggling when you think about all the trillions of little things being manufactured yearly and yet this little planet still has more in store? | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/7norvi/eli5_how_come_we_havent_run_out_of_various/ | {
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" > yet this little planet \n\nI think there is the flaw in your reasoning. Pretty much the sum total of human existence has scratched a little bit of the surface. The deepest mine we've ever made (A gold mine) is about 2.4miles deep. The Earth's crust, which itself is only about 1% of the Earth's volume, is 20 to 30 miles thick on a continent. \n\nAnd we've been mining gold for thousands of years, yet all the gold ever brought to the surface would probably only make a cube about 70 feet on a side. \n\n\n\n\n",
"We are running low on some naturally occurring resources such as indium, but thankfully the laws of supply and demand ensure that if a resource becomes to scarce (and thus too expensive to mine/produce/purchase), we look for alternatives. As a whole, industry is very good at coming up with alternatives and resources are very rarely completely \"used up\". \n\nA fun fact relate to this - all the gold ever mined would only fill around 3.5 Olympic-sized swimming pools. ",
"One of the things you need to keep in mind is that whenever there's some sort of article talking about how we're going to 'run out' of something, what it usually means is that 'we're going to run out of something that was cheap to mine or manufacture'.\n\nTake oil - if we keep burning crude oil the way we've been doing, we'll run out of easily exploited oil reserves, but it's not as if we'll suddenly not be able to have hydrocarbons or manufacture plastics - biofuels can be repurposed for the task, at (significantly) higher costs. Helium? We might 'run out' of helium reserves and deplete all easily exploited helium from natural gas mines, but helium is output from the planetary core at a steady rate from radioactive decay, so if you really needed helium for something you'd be able to extract it, again at significantly higher cost (so probably no more balloons).\n\nVirtually no resources are *destroyed* on consumption, they're simply converted to forms that are significantly more costly to re-extract and re-use. All the metal and plastic waste in landfills could be, at cost, mined out of landfills and recycled into useful plastics and metal, at huge cost in time and labor - but it is possible and becomes economically practical when costs exceed a certain threshold. ",
"The thing about resources, is they will never run out, they will become eventually too expensive to gather as they become more scarce. \n\nFor example, there was a point in human history where oil just naturally oozed out of the ground from pockets near the earth's surface. Today, they are extract oil from incredibly deep wells out in the middle of the ocean.The price of oil has risen (ignoring the influence of government and cartels) to reflect that increased difficulty in extracting. \n\nWhat has happened as a result as of oil becoming more expensive, it becomes more cost effective to explore other energy sources such as natural gas, solar, etc. \n\n ",
"Certain resources are running short: Iridium, Helium, and sand. \n\nSand, you ask? [Yes, sand.](_URL_0_) We use sand in *everything* from houses to electronics, and the stuff we put sand in tends to last a very long time. "
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18nhsj | how does one not become severely injured when jumping from extreme heights into a small amount of water? | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/18nhsj/eli5_how_does_one_not_become_severely_injured/ | {
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"Can you give an example of what you mean? It probably depends on what you mean by 'extreme' height. By and large, you *do* get injured when falling from a great height into water.",
"As the saying goes, it's not the fall that hurts, but the sudden stop at the end.\n\nThe trick, then, is to make the stop *less sudden.* If you fall onto something soft, rather than coming to a stop suddenly, you stop more gradually as the thing you're landing on deforms or displaces under you.\n\nBut water isn't all that great for this. Water is *incompressible,* meaning it doesn't squish like a pillow when you land on it. Instead it has to move out of your way, which it can only do so fast. So lowering your hand into a sink of water hardly feels like anything at all, but doing a belly flop into a pool stings like a mother.\n\nThat's why diving is hard. It's not just the fact that a well executed dive looks good and all that; it's that you *have* to enter the water in just the right way to keep from getting bruises or even broken bones.\n\nSo the short answer is that water *can* slow you down safely and effectively, but only if you use it just right. Use it wrong, and it's not that much better than plowing full-speed into concrete.",
"Did you get this from that Guinness Records gone wild episode? Like /u/Imhtpsnvsbl said, the longer it takes you to decelerate, the less likely you are to be injured. Also, if you slightly angle your body you will \"slice\" into the water, further prolonging the deceleration."
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