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2rchtf | as unhealthy as we now know it to be, does tobacco provide any kind of benefit to the human body? | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/2rchtf/eli5_as_unhealthy_as_we_now_know_it_to_be_does/ | {
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"Well, it does make you look cool.",
"In additional to a stimulant effect, it can dilate the bronchial passages in your lungs, making it a little easier to breathe and improve cardiovascular performance over a short time. Cyclists have been known to light up briefly to jump start their breathing.\n\nOf course, the long term damage to your lungs will quickly outweigh any short term benefits.",
"And it helps to protect smokers from Parkinson's Disease. (Please don't smoke to reduce risk of PD)."
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eh1uzy | how is dosing for medications and over the counter drugs universal? | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/eh1uzy/eli5_how_is_dosing_for_medications_and_over_the/ | {
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"It depends upon the medication and it’s mechanism of action (how it works within the body). \n\nSome medication doses are based on weight, as differences in size change the amount needed for the same result. Other medications are metabolized/ utilized in the body such that the amount available per dose is relatively constant and independent of weight.",
"Partially it's for convenience. It's also a matter of dose-vs-effect curves. Doubling the dose doesn't always mean double the effect. For some drugs, past a certain dose, taking more doesn't really do much. It's also a question of toxic doses--the amount of a drug that causes you harm, especially when you compare it to the dose needed to get an effect (the toxic ratio). So if you can safely take 5 times the dose that you need before you start to get sick, then they can target the dosage so a person of average height and weight takes maybe 3 times what they need to get the positive effects."
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5junlm | why are most gun optics and telescopic optics circular, when if they were square you'd have a larger fov? | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/5junlm/eli5_why_are_most_gun_optics_and_telescopic/ | {
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"So that the lens magnifying what you're looking at doesn't distort the image. It evenly magnifies it so that whoever is aiming can still accurately gauge the size and shape of the target.",
"Because the means to make a square lens equally precisely isn't cheaper. Actually, to make a precision square lens, they make a round lens and then cut out the square part of it. If you have the extra money to spend, there are always bigger and better optics to buy; and they are cheaper than their square counterparts would be."
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1p91m0 | do animals recognize family members and avoid reproducing with them? | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/1p91m0/eli5_do_animals_recognize_family_members_and/ | {
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"Absolutely no.\n\nAn animal in heat is programmed for only one thing, as is any male of her species within range. They do not care if they are son, mother, sister, or father. The prime directive is procreation.\n\nThere may be the odd species where this is not the norm, but that would be the exception.",
"In my anthropology class we learned that male apes and chimps will have sex with anyone EXCEPT the female who birthed them. Its a pretty complex structure. Aka they refuse to have sex with their mother, and some apes refuse to mate with their daughters. \n\nsource: _URL_0_",
"short answer: yesno."
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89llrm | how does tolerance to something work? for example, what makes your body more resistant to caffeine after ingesting it daily for a long period of time? | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/89llrm/eli5_how_does_tolerance_to_something_work_for/ | {
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"Here’s my best stab at it for caffeine.\n\nIt’s kind of like if a kid is riding his bike ten miles to school every day. Say it takes him sixty minutes to ride there every day. \n\nOne day, he discovers that there’s a school bus which runs right by his house and straight to school after it stops at his house. He rides the bus instead. What took him sixty minutes to achieve before now only takes him a little over fifteen minutes. \n\nNow that it only takes fifteen minutes, he starts planning for only that long to get to school. He gets accustomed to riding the bus, which becomes his new equivalent of the bike.\n\nThen one day the bus doesn’t show up. He has to ride his bike instead, which takes four times as long. He shows up late. He has to go back to leaving for school earlier to make it in time. \n\nThe bike is normal functions, and the bus is the caffeine. Your body doesn’t become *resistant* to caffeine so much as it becomes *dependent* on caffeine to do normal things at a level that fits what is normal for us (getting to school). It works similarly for other things, although some may require more effort from your body rather than less to become accustomed to.",
"Biochemist here. Caffeine is an analog of adenosine, and as you probably know it's a stimulant. It does this by inhibiting the same receptors as adenosine, but that's not relevant to your question.\n\nWhen you ingest things into your body, they will eventually be utilized and broken down, or just broken down. The answer to your question is in this area of biochemistry. Caffeine (and any drug) promotes its effects so long as it is present in your system, but most will eventually be caught by the CYP family of proteins present in your liver. CYP proteins are a very important set of enzymes that pick up xenobiotic/biologically useless substances or toxic substances and modifies them for excretion. The amount that these enzymes are present are also sensitive to the frequency and intensity of how often substances are present. If your body senses that caffeine or whatever is constantly and immensely being introduced, protein synthesis will be modified to adapt to these changes to maintain homeostasis.\n\nIn the specific case of caffeine:\nCaffeine is degraded by CYP1A2\nCaffeine also binds to Aryl Hydrocarbon Receptor, which is a receptor that detects caffeine and similar compounds. Once it senses caffeine, it begins a signaling sequence to promote the creation of more CYP1A2, thereby increasing the degradation of caffeine.\nInterestingly, if you have a defect in either of these genes, you could be caffeine sensitive as your body won't be able to degrade caffeine as well.\n\nEdit: accidentally said caffeine was an adenosine agonist instead of an antagonist",
"So, I only took one college course on neuropsychology, but it was about drugs effects on the brain, so I'll explain it as I remember it:\n\nYour brain is a factory. In this factory, there is chemicals and receptors. Certain chemicals can only go in certain receptors. Let's pretend the chemicals are Workers and the receptors are Work Stations. \n\nAdenosine (Worker) is a chemical that makes you tired and it begins working when it attaches to the right receptor (Work Station). But one day, when adenosine goes to its Work Station, it discovers caffeine is working in its spot. Now, the body doesn't feel tired because adenosine isn't in its Work Station. \n\nBut the factory's supervisor notices that adenosine isn't in its Work Station. The supervisor starts thinking there's a problem because the factory has always worked smoothly. The supervisor sends out adrenaline to solve the problem.\n\nBut coffee keeps taking adenosine's Work Station and supervisor wants thing to go back to normal (homeostasis). So, he makes more Work Stations and the adenosine goes back to work, which makes you tired again. \n\nTL;DR: your brain gets upset over changes and will try to compensate for it. \n\n\n\n\n"
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1p10e0 | the nervous system | Can anyone explain the major areas of the nervous system to me in simplest terms?
Somatic, visceral, sensory, motor, the functions, vocab, just anything worth mentioning.
I'm trying to grasp it and I think this might help. | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/1p10e0/eli5_the_nervous_system/ | {
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"Motor-Brain to muscle. Allows you to move.\n\nSensory-Sensory nerve cell to brain. Tells you what's happening.\n\nCranial nerves-12 important nerves in the brain.\n\nSpinal nerves-several important nerves from the spinal cord.\n\nCNS-brain and spinal cord\n\nPNS-everything else\n\nAutonomic nervous system-that which happens automatically\n\nSomatic nervous system-that which you control",
"Also worth mentioning:\nefferent: motoric (memory hook: effector, something that does the effect)\nafferent: sensory\nvisceral: inherent to organs\nsomatic: everything not belonging to organs\nMore about glands:\n endocrine: secrete hormon in blood vessel\n exocrine: secrete hormon not in blood vessel",
"Oh yes. Medical student reporting in, about to get my geek on. \n\nBefore we begin, it's important to understand that the nervous system has two routes: Data going in to the brain, and data going out of the brain. These routes are known as 'afferent' and 'efferent' signals, respectively. \n\nSo, we shall begin our journey with the efferent (OUT-going) nervous signals. There are two major divisions of outgoing nervous signals: \n\n**The Somatic nervous system** - This is the stuff we control consciously like moving our muscles, baking a delicious cake or walking. This information goes from the primary motor cortex in your brain, down the spine, and out to your muscles via spinal nerves. \n\n**The Autonomic Nervous System** - This is the stuff we don't exert any conscious control of. Our heart beating, gastrointestinal motility etc. (Fun Fact: breathing's sort of halfy-halfy. For example, you weren't breathing consciously until you read this). \n\nThe autonomic nervous system can be divided into **SYMPATHETIC** and **PARASYMPATHETIC** branches. The sympathetic branch does all the stuff that speeds you up, the 'fight or flight' response: Raised heart rate, adrenaline release, increased breathing, anything you'd need to run away from a sabre-toothed tiger. The parasympathetic does the 'rest and digest' stuff, so chilling and playing vidya while your body deals with that nineteenth pack of Doritos. \n\n\nNow, the sensory stuff:\nThis is a tricky area, as there are a number of different sensory signals our brain can receive. Itch, pain, light touch, heavy touch and proprioception (our awareness of our limbs' position in space) are detected by different types of nerve ending. \n\nSuffice to say that this 'somatosensory' information (meaning information relating to our body) is all consciously detected as afferent signals from our limbs, trunk and head, up our spinal cord and into our brain. \n\nThen there's the stuff we're not aware of. Things like a drop in body temperature or heart rate. This is the visceral (relating to our organs) sensory information. This, again travels via either spinal nerves or cranial nerves (nerves that go straight to the brain - no need to use that spinal cord)\n\nOh fuck, I forgot about cranial nerves!! Those motherfuckers are a bitch to learn. You're stood feeling like a toddler who got caught with his finger up his arse in front of this pimp-ass surgeon who just asked you where the nucleus of the glossopharyngeal nerve lies. Douchebag. \n\nAnyway there's 12 of them. They each have functions that are any combination of those listed above. They do sight, hearing, taste, smell, balance, sensation of the face, movement of the facial muscles and tongue and a whole mess of other crap too. But get this, they don't use the motherfucking spinal cord. Not once. \n\n**TL;DR -** Fuck you, I had to learn it!!\n\n\n"
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1rx5mv | if texting while driving is bad/illegal why is it ok when car companies install navigation screens on their cars? | im pretty sure you can make phone calls and check emails and all kinds of other stuff you shouldn't be doing while driving | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/1rx5mv/if_texting_while_driving_is_badillegal_why_is_it/ | {
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"Those screens don't work when the car is in motion (or at least have severally reduced functionality).",
"As in GPS?, they are designed to be less distractive and don't require the same level of attention to operate as opposed to sending a text message."
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4irbp9 | why do old erasers get hard? | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/4irbp9/eli5why_do_old_erasers_get_hard/ | {
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"Rubber and various plastics contain solvents and \"plasticizers\" that keep them soft and malleable. They evaporate over time, making them harder."
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7mp2wz | how birth defects happen | How do these actually become decided, and why do they happen? | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/7mp2wz/eli5how_birth_defects_happen/ | {
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"There are many causes and many different situations.\n\nSome defects are chemically triggered, a perfectly normal fetus exposed to thalidomide at the wrong point in its development will turn out with a defect.\n\nSome defects are genetic, through a copying error or expression of a recessive trait a fetus will develop with a defect. \n\nThe concept of \"decide\" and \"happen\" carry the connotation of understanding and thoughtful decision making that doesn't make much sense in these biologic processes."
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38byt7 | how did humans discover the act of sexual intercourse? | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/38byt7/eli5how_did_humans_discover_the_act_of_sexual/ | {
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"At least with heterosexual sex, I've got a plug and you've got a socket and they are roughly in line with eachother, let's give it a shot. ",
"It's been passed down in some form through evolution ever since sexual reproduction evolved. The most prominent driving force that guides evolution is the ability to reproduce, so it's quite literally in our genes.",
"We didn't. Sex predates humans by 1.2 billion years. The immediate ancestors of our species had sex just like we did. There was nothing that needed discovering."
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1rih4i | stack overflow and buffer overflow | I've come across these few terms a couple of times when I'm reading computer-related stuff. Wikipedia's explaination is too tough for me to understand so I hope someone can explain what these 2 terms mean and what are the implications of having a program having such problems | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/1rih4i/eli5_stack_overflow_and_buffer_overflow/ | {
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"**Stack overflow**\n\nWhenever you call a function, memory for that function is allocated in a place called the call stack. When the function completes its run, that memory is released. A stack overflow happens if too many functions are called, and there's not enough room in the stack (which has a hard size limit) to allocate more memory.\n\nHow can this happen? Look at the following code for example:\n\n int foo() {\n return foo();\n }\n\nWhen you execute foo() for the first time, memory for it is allocated on the stack. But then the function calls itself - so memory is allocated again. The 2nd invocation of the function calls itself a 3rd time - and so on, to infinity (and beyond). Eventually the stack will run out of memory and the program will crash.",
"**Buffer overflow**\n\nA buffer overflow when you try to write data into a buffer (an array), and the data exceeds the size of the array. For example:\n\n char buffer[8];\n scanf(\"%s\", buffer);\n\nThe function scanf reads a string from the user into the buffer, which is 8 bytes long. However, scanf doesn't limit how many characters will be read - it will read until it's done (until a whitespace character is reached). So what happens if the user enters \"helloworld\"? The first 8 bytes are written into the buffer, but the rest are written just outside the boundaries of the array.\n\nNow one of three things can happen:\n\n1. The overwritten memory can be unimportant, and nothing bad will happen (for example, the memory could have been used previously in the function but not anymore).\n2. The program is not allowed to write to this memory, so it will report an error (and probably crash).\n3. The worst case is that the memory being overwritten is important, but the program continues running. This allows the user to change parts of the memory they shouldn't normally have access to, which is a security flaw (thanks /u/BrQQQ for expanding on this!).",
"Stack overflow: When you can't push another Pez into the dispenser because there just isn't room. Not enough room to write data/addresses into memory, because the stack is full.\n\nBuffer overflow: When you write the \"To:\" address on an envelope, and you don't stop at the edge of the envelope and you keep writing on the table. Writing bytes into memory past some predetermined limit."
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4wrdcq | sleep apnea and how it can lead to death | With the recent news of Zach Hemmila passing in his sleep, (senior football player at Arizona) many people question sleep apnea as a cause. Can someone go in depth on this issue, and does it worsen or get better with age? | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/4wrdcq/eli5_sleep_apnea_and_how_it_can_lead_to_death/ | {
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"In essence, obstructive sleep apnea collapses the airway while a person sleeps which prevents him or her from breathing properly. This can lead to long periods of time where the person does not breathe at all which, over time, cascades into all kinds of other health issues. Live with it long enough and it can kill either abruptly via some kind of heart event or through related issues over time.",
"Sleep apnea is when there is arrest of breathing in your sleep.\nIt doesn't necessarily cause you to wake up but may cause hypoxia brain damage over the long run.\n\nHow it works: \n- > you have hypertrophied adenoid glands/you are over weight/other risk factors \n\n- > during sleep, diminished air entering during inspiration/breathing in\n\n- > Carbon dioxide levels in blood increase \n\n- > respiratory acidosis (I.e acidification of blood)\n\n- > resultant hyperventilation/(increased rate of breathing) due to stimulation of respiratory centre in brain \n\n- > increased oxygenation due to increased breathing rate \n\n- > suppression of breathing due to high blood oxygen levels \n\n\nThis is your Chyne-Stoke Breathing(spelling citation needed) \nThis is what happens throughout your sleep in a cyclic fashion.\nIt causes discomfort and incomplete sleep.\nMaybe life threatening in severe cases \n\n\nShould be treated immediately. \n\nSurgical adenectomy, turbenectomy and other surgical corrections may help\n\nLifestyle changes to decrease weight are also helpful \n\n\n\n\nI am a med student",
"It can also lead to death this way: I was driving to work and fell asleep while driving. It was such a near miss with a tractor trailer that I had to sit for about an hour on the median getting myself together. I creeped to work and called my doctor who set up a sleep study immediately. Three days later I had a cpap and I felt like I had a new life. \nI have NEVER slept without using it for the past 14 years. ",
"If you have sleep apnea, your throat closes off while you sleep. This makes your brain panic and wake you up hundreds of times a night, even if you don't realize it. Over time, it enlarges your heart which can kill you. Also, it can make you incredibly tired. \n\nI use a CPAP machine when I sleep that blows enough air to inflate my throat while I sleep. It also has the added bonus of making a lot of fart noises when the mask isn't sealed on my face. ",
"For all the previous reasons mentioned, and also lack of or deprivation of sleep can have serious long-term impacts on your overall health, like increased risks of high blood-pressure, heart attacks, heart disease, stroke, weight gain, type 2 diabetes, and a weakened immune system.\n\nIt also impacts your mental health and performance as well, putting you an an increased risk for depression, hallucinations, moodiness, issues with memory-especially long-term memory, and other cognitive dysfunctions. ",
"There are multiple types of sleep apnea. The main 2 forms of it are called obstructive and central sleep apnea.\n\nIn ELI5 form:\n\nObstructive sleep apnea is when your wind pipe closes off while you sleep. This stops the fresh air supply to the lungs and causes the blood oxygen levels to decrease. /u/AwesomeREDEMPTION has written a good explanation of this in this thread.\n\nThe second main type of sleep apnea is central sleep apnea. This is when the body doesn't recognise the blood oxygen levels correctly and 'forgets' to breathe while asleep. \n\nTo answer your question, sleep apnea is one of the many causes of cot death in infants, and can kill older people too. Generally if you survive as an infant you tend to grow out of it, however it can also onset later in life due to various reasons such as weight gain and growth of adenoids.\n\nSource: I have a very rare form of sleep apnea, and am a veterinary med student\n\n\n ",
"Just to add to the personal experiences, which might help explain.\nI have what has been described as \"severe\" sleep apnea.\nWhen at its worst (via sleep test) I would breathe 18 - 20 seconds out of every minute - which was loud snoring, fractured, and painful (upon waking up). The remaining ~40 seconds I would cycle through silence, choking type movements, and what was best described (as per my wife when sleeping at home) as violent heaving of my chest. At some point my body wakes up enough to reopen my airway with a big inhale, then exhale, then repeat. While that doesn't happen ALL night, it happens for a significant portion. Due to the relaxation of my throat, etc, when I do breathe, the snoring is loud enough that it can be heard throughout my house, from top corner to opposite bottom two floors down, doors closed.\n\n\nSo in reading the above, think of the stress that causes on the body, the muscles, the heart, lungs, throat, etc.\n\nBeyond that are the lingering effects - lack of oxygen, lack of sleep (I can't remember how much deep sleep the report said I got, but it was way, way below a healthy amount), annoyed spouse...\n\nThis means I am always tired, which makes driving a challenge. I can fall asleep almost anytime within a few minutes. So I could sleep for 14 hours, get up for an hour or two, then easily go back to sleep. Hell, I can't study or be in a meeting without having trouble staying awake. :P\n\nAnyways, there are short term (asleep while driving / doing something) and long term implications (stress on body / heart) to sleep apnea that can lead to various avenues of death. Its not a fun thing to have.\n\nYour second question: does it get better with age? From my knowledge no, the specialists I have seen have basically stated that this is not going anywhere. I will have this until I die (hopefully not because of sleep apnea).\n\nTo try and ELI5 better: Sleep Apnea means your airways close (throat) while you sleep, stopping you from breathing. This places stress on your body and heart. It also stops you from getting the various stages of deeper sleep, which are important, and leave you tired throughout the day, thus more prone to accidents (clumsiness / falling asleep while driving / trying to pay attention).\n\n\nAS A NOTE: I do have a CPAP and it does help somewhat, the above is more of a description of my experience when NOT using it. Also CPAP (Continuous Positive Airway Pressure) blows a constant stream of air into the mouth and / or nose set to a degree high enough to keep your airway open (different for everyone). This in effect stops things from closing up so you can breathe normally all night.",
"I could tolerate neither a CPAP nor a Bi-PAP machine (different pressures for inhalation and exhalation), so my ENT scheduled me for a uvulopalatopharyngoplasty (UPPP or UP3) to correct my moderate sleep apnea. I had it done this past Friday (three days ago). The doctor used a special laser to detach and remove my tonsils and to remove some tissue in my pharynx. He also sutured my uvula to my soft palate, and finished by suturing the pharynx. He sent me home with prescriptions for antibiotics, anti-nausea medication (since I have to take so many antibiotics), and 100 percocet.\n\nI haven't noticed yet any difference in sleep patterns, mainly because I am still dealing with pain in my jaw from it being clamped open during surgery and irritation of the throat from the surgery and my tongue from the sutures rubbing against it.\n\nI don't think I ever realized how serious of a problem sleep apnea is until recently. I was just tired of always being tired, so I started to take it seriously which led to me getting sleep studies done, trying out CPAP, and committing to this surgery. While UPPP doesn't hacve a 100% success rate in curing sleep apnea, I believe it will be successful in my case because there have been many times while just walking around when I have noticed myself having labored breathing due to all the crap in the back of my mouth obstructing my trachea. Now that it is gone, I expect I'll be sleeping a lot more soundly.",
"A more subtle way sleep apnea can kill you is by causing arrhythmias (abnormal conduction of electricity in the heart). \n\n* Sleep apnea, through various mechanisms, decreases the amount of oxygen in your lungs. When the decreased oxygen in your lungs ultimately feeds back to your pulmonary arterioles, they vasoconstrict in the hopes of diverting blood from the right ventricle to more oxygen-rich areas of your lung. Unfortunately, the decreased oxygenation is caused by some factor in your upper airways(obstructive sleep apnea/OSA) or brain(central sleep apnea), so the pulmonary arterioles undergo a more diffuse vasoconstriction.\n \n* Now the right ventricle has to pump against much more resistance(narrower tubes) to get blood to the lungs. It can overcome that pressure by building thicker muscles, ultimately screwing up its electrical wiring and decreasing the amount of blood it can pump(by decreasing the amount of blood it can hold(preload)). Or it can accept its fate, get overloaded with fluid, and get stretched out, also ultimately screwing up its electrical wiring and decreasing the amount it can pump(muscle fibers stretched beyond their optimal efficiency point can't contract well(contractility)).\n\n* Well, right before the right ventricle is the right atrium. It is where the electrical rhythms of your heart normally originate. Its relationship with increased right ventricle pressure is similar to the right ventricle's relationship with increased lung arteriole pressures. However, it is more likely to stretch out like a balloon rather than thicken its wall muscles, compared to the right ventricle. This royally screws up its conduction pathways and can lead to problems like Afib and potentially other arrhythmias.\n\nEDIT: learning to format",
"I am not a doctor, nor have any affiliation with a company that sells the device I am about to mention. I simply have sleep apnea. For anyone having issues using a CPAP, I recently switched to a TAP device. It's an adjustable mouthpiece professionally made from the dentist that shifts my bottom jaw forward while I sleep to prevent my throat from collapsing. I no longer snore and feel just as well as when I used my CPAP. I slept with a CPAP for years and tired of lugging it on trips. Feel free to ask me any questions.",
"Just adding that if you have or suspect you have sleep apnea, treating it might be wonderfully life changing. I avoided the truth for 10+ years. When I finally went through the process (sleep test, diagnosis, another night sleeping to get the pressure right in my case) and then got used to the machine (about 2 months) - changed my life. For me, I just wasn't exhausted any more. I didn't realize how tired I was literally all the time until I realized that when people asked me how I was, I stopped saying \"great, but tired\". \n\nIt's a project to get it all done, but there's no pain, just a time investment (at least for me) and totally worth it. If anyone wants to PM me on this, feel free.\n",
"Does insurance cover any part of a sleep test? I'm just wondering how much $ is involved. I know I need a test, I've been avoiding it though because of the cost. ",
"Trying my first ELI5:\n\nThe obstructive sleep apnea causes your oxygen levels to fall to dangerously levels during sleep, while not for the whole time but very often. The missing oxygen in your blood causes cells to be damaged and also a high blood pressure (hypertension). So it puts a strain on your heart (it will become bigger) and lungs trying to cope for the missing Oxygen. It will not become better with age but most likely worsen.\n\nSource:\nI have sleep apnea and have to use a CPAP and are in my mid 30s it was diagnosed in my early 20s. I was known since high-school for my snoring. It will most likely accompany me until i die or until a treatment is found.\n\nIf you know someone who snores loudly or gasping for air during sleep, let him see a doc, you might save years of his life.",
"For anyone considering a CPAP or just getting one: \n\nIt's going to be weird and uncomfortable at first. You HAVE to be diligent, use it every night no matter what, and don't give up on it. \n\nI hated mine at first and I would take it off after 4 or 5 hours all the time. Now, I can't imagine sleeping without it. Give it at LEAST 3 months before you even consider flaking out. I promise you, it will eventually become like a security blanket and you'll love it. \n\nAlso, don't get your expectations too high about your life changing and being a \"whole new person\", etc. There's no question, you will feel BETTER for sure. Some people, depending on the severity of their apnea, will feel more envigorated than others. \n\nThe main thing is, to stick with it. If you have bad apnea, it's really not optional for you. Get your machine, use it, and feel better. \nBONUS: In the winter, you can cover your head with your blankets and still breathe nice cool air through the hose. Like a bed scuba diver.",
"I'm an Respiratory therapist... Maybe I can shed some light on this issue for you. First, let's discuss the two different kinds of sleep apnea. One form of sleep apnea is called central sleep apnea (CSA). In this form of sleep apnea your brain doesn't send a signal out to your nervous system to breath, so you'll literally stop breathing until Co2 levels get high enough that it wakes you up gasping to breath. The other form of sleep apnea is called obstructive sleep apnea (OSA). You usually see this form of sleep apnea in obese individuals or athletes with thick necks/short necks. When your body goes into R.E.M sleep your entire body relaxes and goes into a temporary state of paralysis. This causes the muscles and tissues around your airway to relax which can occlude your airway. This can lead to hypoxia/hypercapnia and loss of airway protection. This can cause restless ness, daytime headaches, and mood swings. I believe OSA is what contributed to the death of Hall Of Fame defensive end Reggie White as well. Having any form of sleep apnea and drinking can also be a deadly combo as well because alcohol is a depressant and you may not wake up when your Co2 levels get high enough. Usually the effects of sleep apnea can be mitigated by using a CPAP or BIPAP at night to sleep. If you are experiencing any of those symptoms that I listed you may want to consult with your PCP and look into having a sleep study done. But to answer your question, yes, sleep apnea in either form can KILL YOU! I won't say age isn't a factor, but considering most cases I see are OSA, usually health is the bigger factor. If you're to obese, OSA can kill you... If you're a healthy body builder/football player with a large neck circumference... OSA can kill you! \n\nEdited: words ",
"One thing I didn't see mentioned is that severe untreated sleep apnea can cause tremendous extra work on your heart which in turn leads to right heart failure (very bad) which can cause death in a short period of time. \n\nSource: anesthesiologist ",
"I suffer from extremely severe sleep apnea, my breathing stops an average of 96 times an hour. Do the math. This can kill. I literally cannot fall asleep at this point, because survival instinct, without a CPAP. Before then I was slowly choking to death every night having to sleep upwards of 16 hours a day to get anything like reasonable rest. I gained 150lbs despite healthy eating and exercise 5 nights a week. My metabolism may be permanently changed and I will never be in the shape I once was. Yes, sleep apnea can MAKE you fat, not just visa versa as many many people claim (including doctors). Mine is caused by enlarged tonsils and a deviated septum, but insurance will cover neither operation because the CPAP therapy works perfectly. The worst thing about sleep apnea, for me, isn't the fact I'm tied to a machine for life. It's not that I can't just fall asleep in the afternoon. The worst part is that people think I have it because I'm fat and that if I lost the weight I wouldn't need the machine. Good luck convincing them otherwise because outside of photographic documentation of my previous body no one believes me when I tell them it was the other way around.",
"Sleep apnoea = periods of not breathing in your sleep.\n\nCause of not breathing = base of tongue, other soft tissues becoming floppy when you sleep causing obstruction to breathy tube between mouth and lungs.\n\nResponse = body senses not breathing as carbon dioxide rises in your blood, brain freaks out and kicks of your \"fight or flight\" networks (sympathetic drive for the A* 5 year olds), to get you to wake up enough to take a better breath.\n\nResult = you don't die immediately from not breathing.\n\nLong term problem leading to greater chance of death = not fully understood. Emerging evidence suggests the repeated sympathetic stimulation multiple times a night for years on end is similar to living a stressful life, even if your daily living isn't stressful, which we know also kills you earlier.\n\nNo references because 5 year olds don't get them. But google scholar will be your friend if you wish. \n",
"While sleep apnea does result in pauses in respiration during sleep, the main danger is not actually from choking, but from the associated disorders. Sleep apnea is known to significantly increase the risk of stroke, cardiac arrhythmias, hypertension, and myocardial infarction.\n\nSource: I'm a doctor that used to work at a sleep clinic."
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2qcwc2 | bleach... how does it! | Today I had a bucket of dirty water (brown from mopping my kitchen floor) then was cut off in my area due to a fire a few blocks down the road
I wasnt finished cleaning so I dropped about a cup of bleach into the bucket, then went to be a spectator of this christmas fire.
returned and the water was clear! and no longer brown.. How and why does this work/happen?
P.s. I did not leave the mop in the bucket | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/2qcwc2/eli5bleach_how_does_it/ | {
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"Did the dirt drop out of solution and settle to the bottom of the bucket? What happens if you agitate the mixture?",
"Color in living materials is often caused by molecules where electrons are relatively mobile (_URL_0_) - bleach adds oxygen atoms to these molecules, and electrons then tend to stay near to the oxygen atoms and lose enough mobility so that the molecule is no longer colorful"
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31vt2h | why does time seem to slow when your body is in shock? | I pulled out when the green light appeared and a truck wasnt paying attention and nearly t boned me. Time seemed to slow even though my foot was still on the gas. The only thing that stopped the collision was a car behind me honked their horn and the truck slammed on the brakes.
My heart was pounding even an hour after what happened, along with a headache. | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/31vt2h/eli5_why_does_time_seem_to_slow_when_your_body_is/ | {
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"Think about the idea of your mind racing, When you have the feeling of shock your mind will race doing more in that short amount of time then normal give this illusion effect that time slows down ",
"When you have adrenaline running in your body, your brain remembers more events taking place rather than deleting them. This causes you to think like time is slow when in actual fact, it isn't. \n\nThink of it like a video. The more frames you have, the longer the video, and therefore, the more detail.",
"The jury's out. Both previous answers are theories. Other places say it's just an illusion of your memory, such as this article: _URL_0_\n\nI anecdotally reject that conclusion. Once I was riding on the back of a four-wheeler. We were going up a steep hill. When we got to the lip of the edge, the driver down-shifted for some reason. As soon as the front tire lifted in the air, time slowed. It wasn't an illusion. I had a series of distinct individual thoughts. \n\n > Did he just..?\n\n > Shit!\n\n > This is going to hurt...\n\nThen my back hit the ground and everything went real-time again and I felt the impact and watched the 4 wheeler flip into the air. "
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819oz1 | what are the advantages/disadvantages of royalty vs. equity deals for start up companies on shark tank? | It always seems to be like the entrepreneurs on Shark Tank interpret the royalty deals as strictly worse, but I don't understand how to do the math to come to that conclusion. Example: One shark offers 100k for 5% equity, another offers 1$ royalty when selling the product at say 7$ until the 100k is recouped. Why is 1 deal strictly worse than the other, how did you do the math to figure it out? | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/819oz1/eli5_what_are_the_advantagesdisadvantages_of/ | {
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" > Why is 1 deal strictly worse than the other, how did you do the math to figure it out?\n\nEquity is ownership in the company. If they pay $100,000 for 5% of the company they will break even at the point the company is worth $2 million. But as the company becomes more valuable their profit isn't capped at any value; conceptually they could make millions if the company is successful. They also get to vote on the composition of the board, the company owes them a legal obligation to treat their investment with due care, etc. If the CEO spends the $100,000 on hookers and blow then they can sure for recompense.\n\nOn the other hand a royalty is a simple capped loan. They can't make back much more than the $100,000 because the deal ends then, so if they still 20 million units they still only make a dollar from the first 100,000. They don't get to vote on the board members or the direction of the company, and they have no legal recourse if the management acts without regard to their financial investment. And finally if the company fails to sell units they can't turn around and sell off the assets of the company to make their money back.\n\nIt doesn't really need much in the way of calculations to see why the royalty is much worse than equity."
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173mhc | hey reddit, i'm an australian and i would like to know how the welfare system works in america. thanks! | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/173mhc/hey_reddit_im_an_australian_and_i_would_like_to/ | {
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"It's changing quite a bit with the PPACA (obamacare). There are many different aspects of what would be traditionally considered \"welfare\". For example, food stamps, aka the supplemental nutritional assistance program (SNAP), are given to individuals or families with low income to provide money for food. Typically these benefits are provided via a benefit card that acts kinda like a prepaid card. This benefit card only works for certain items at the store. The are tons of regulations regarding how much you receive and how long you can continue receiving benefits. \n\nAdditionally, there is a program called temporary assistance for needy families (TANF) which provides assistance in the form of cash. Like if your car breaks down you may be eligible for a one-time payment to offset those costs.\n\nNow let's move into Medicaid. Medicaid is basically insurance for low income families/individuals. To be eligible for Medicaid after obamacare your eligibility will be based on your modified adjusted gross income (magi) which is calculated after after taxes. This is somewhat problematic since many individuals who would be eligible for Medicaid don't file taxes or aren't required to file taxes. In those cases it goes to pre-obamacare rules which are based on income and assets that are typically identified through interviews. Chip is the children's health insurance program and is similar/(the same) as Medicaid only it is only for children. \n\nMedicare is for elderly people and is basically insurance for them too.\n\nWith obamacare, States will have health exchanges which will basically be the Amazon/ebay of health insurance. Depending on which state one lives in well determine how those exchanges are run.\n\nUmmm... There is definitely more I can explain (especially about Medicaid), do you have any other questions specifically? \n\nThe idea behind welfare is to try and help people out of poverty. Unfortunately, the is a big stigma to receiving welfare benefits which makes them less effective than they potentially could be. ",
"It really doesn't very well. Thanks for asking, glad to help.\n\nOkay, bitter joke over. But it is true that as nations with mostly paved roads go, we're probably worse at this than anyone.\n\nThe money comes mostly from the federal government, but is mostly managed by the states, as the result of a compromise made many years ago. The result, as you'd expect, is greater cost, complexity, bureaucracy, and confusion. More, this federal money is most commonly distributed in 'block grants,' leaving states to decide for themselves how 'best' to use it. And that means that it will vary, sometimes considerably, from state to state. In general -- and again, predictably -- it tends to be better in more liberal states than in more conservative ones. Not only in terms of the amounts covered or provided, but the qualifications, too. And the rules will commonly vary from one political and fiscal cycle to the next.\n\nIt's basically a Kafkaesque nightmare.\n",
"Why? So you can come here and mooch off us hard workin' 'Muricans like all those other foreigners? Get lost.\n\nI'm just kidding. There are already a few good answers, I don't have anything to add."
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ee9no6 | if a large pill contains a small amount of medication, what is the rest of the pill for? | If let's say my vitamin D pill contains 50 micrograms of vitamin D, what is the rest of the pill made of and what is its function?
Because seemingly the pill is much more in weight than 50 mcg. | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/ee9no6/eli5_if_a_large_pill_contains_a_small_amount_of/ | {
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"Most pills/tablets contain such a small amount of active ingredient that it would be impossible to handle it unless it's placed within a binding material. So it's mixed with a harmless bulking/binding ingredient and pressed into a pill form. They can also be used to mask unpleasant tastes or provide an additional ingredient to help absorption (or even slow absorption). Pills can also have alphanumeric codes, colours added or be a specific shape to help in identification. \n\nThis isn't just used for pharmaceutical drugs, illicit pills such as MDMA are mixed with binding agents to help press it into tablet form, and provide the producer with a way of marking their tablets.",
"To expand on the answers already:\n\n1. As has been said, a large part the pill will be 'filler' which is meant to be inert. This is included to make the pill a reasonable size for handling by human fingers.\n2. Pills may also contain a binding agent, which changes how the pill breaks down. Binders can slow down how quickly the pill dissolves (to make it longer acting, sustained release).\n3. Some pills will have a coating that makes them resistant to breakdown, for example, in the stomach. This is often to protect the medication from the acidic stomach environment, or alternatively to protect the stomach from the medication (e.g., if it increases risk of unceration)\n4. There are also a collection of miscellaneous other compounds added, usually grouped under the name 'excipients'. These include:\n 1. Coloring. This makes different pills more easy to identify than if they were all the same colour. Some medications have different doses identified with different colours.\n 2. Flavouring. Some medications are flavoured (e.g., there has been a liquid peppermint-flavoured version of Prozac made to be more palatable to children)\n 3. Preservatives. To increase the shelf-life of the medication.\n\nThere probably other things I've missed as well. The Consumer Medication Information lists all of the ingredients of tablets/capsules, even down to the black printing ink use to print on the side of a capsule.\n\nThere are also more complicated pills/capsules. For an example of this, take a look at the Concerta capsule, which is a longer acting version of Ritalin (methylphenidate), which has some really cool features to make the effect longer-lasting.",
"If a 20 milligram pill were dispensed in pure form.....you’d need tweezers to pick it up ."
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d6bqfk | how the water cyle works and why are we "wasting" too much water. | First of all, don't take this as a "anti-ecology" thing because I'm really into sustainable ways of living, but I really don't get how the water cycle works. In elementary school I learnt that it's a cycle and what you use will turn again into drinkable water, but I know that it isn't just like that and we need to "save" water now. Please explain this like I'm 5! | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/d6bqfk/eli5_how_the_water_cyle_works_and_why_are_we/ | {
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"Our supply of potable (drinkable) water is limited, and that's because we're really, really good at polluting water supplies. We're also very good at turning potable water into waste water, either through drinking it or using it in day to day activities, like flushing the toilet or washing our hands.\n\nThe water we turn into waste does find its way back to the sea eventually (after treatment), but it then has to go through the water cycle again before it shows up as potable water once more. And because of our aforementioned ability to pollute water supplies, it has to be treated again before it can be drunk. That takes resources, time, and energy. So the best option is to save water, because that's the most efficient way to make sure we have enough potable water available.",
"We’re using more water than what we receive (from rain, river, lakes, wells,). So we need to save water by using less and make sure it doesn’t get dirty.\n\nWater gets used for lots of things besides drinking, usually a lot more than what people drink. Farming, industry (fracking, mining, etc.) commercial (car wash, manufacturing plants), etc. Combined, were using a lot more clean water than what’s provided through the natural water cycle. So we’re “running out” of water and we need to “save” water by using less.",
"In addition to what others have mentioned about water being drawn faster than replenished, the infrastructure built to supply and treat water and wastewater is extremely expensive, it's the bulk of the spendings of any municipality. They build a reservoir and then need to pay for it over like 50 years and all levels of government need to provide extra funding. If you \"waste\" water you are putting extra unnecessary demand on the system. I was operating a water plant in a rich neighborhood where people would water their huge lots all night long, and the demand for water in the summer was 300 times higher than in the winter. So the people were paying millions extra collectively over the years in infrastructure just to water their lawn. People don't realise this because their water bill is still cheap but then they complain about crazy city tax. So the reasonable thing would be to have a second pipe for untreated water but that would only shed the cost of the chemicals to treat the water, the pumps and pipes underground are the really expensive part. The most reasonable approach would be to NOT water the grass! Or water a small area for the kids to play and leave the rest to nature. That is why schools have to try and teach kids' realistic mindset on water consumption, the parents already like their green grass way too much to change.",
"The water cycle is: water is in oceans and lakes. It evaporates and goes into the air, this purifies the water as only the pure water evaporates. It moves around in the air. It falls as rain or snow to the ground. It then travels in rivers to a lake or river, or it goes into the ground water which are basically underground lakes.\n\nThe two key things here are that there is a lot of water by lakes and oceans but less water further from them, and rain is pure water for free but otherwise to get pure water we have to do work on it. \n\nThis mean that many places not by lakes and oceans have limited water at all. There is very little water in a desert, pure or not. Water there is often re-used as much as possible. For instance the fountains in Las Vega keep re-using the same water.\n\nThis also means that once water is used it costs money to make it usable for drinking again. People do not like to pay for that, so used water is usually just put down the drain. So even if you live by an ocean with a lot of water, there may be little pure water available for your use."
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pmqnk | why do so many celebrities die from drug-related deaths? | In the wake of Whitney Houston's death, I find that a lot of celebrities die from drug overdoses or drug-related deaths (I'm thinking Amy Winehouse, and countless others).
Is there just something about public exposure that drives celebrities to do drugs? What makes drugs so attractive for them? Is it part of a reputation that they feel they have to keep up?
Thanks in advance.
| explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/pmqnk/eli5_why_do_so_many_celebrities_die_from/ | {
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"I'll just give an opinion since I'm not a professional, but I am a grown-up and you're five.\nPeople who are celebrities (and by this, I am guessing you mean in the entertainment field, as opposed to famous scientists and so forth) are famous, in part, because they have very strong personalities and have become successful in a *very very* competitive industry. They sometimes worry a lot that they will become not-so-popular if they don't continue working very hard and looking very beautiful or handsome. They also are usually very rich and have a lot of people who take care of them all the time. Many many people like to be near celebrities because they too can get lots more money than they could working at real jobs and just being around famous people can be very exciting. Famous people also do not usually get to live \"normal\" lives. They can't go places without everyone who sees them asking for their photograph or take a picture with them. Life for them can be really hard to control. Now to the drugs. There are several reasons. Drugs can make you feel REALLY good when you are otherwise feeling really tired, or worried, or scared, or depressed or anxious. They can make it seem like all your problems go away. Sometimes drugs will make you feel like everything is fantastic when it really isn't. It's also generally true that people are willing to try drugs when others all around them are encouraging them to do that. If you have loads of money and loads of worries and loads of people with drugs around you, it's easy to give in to the pressure and continue to drugs. Celebrities don't get in trouble with the police for drugs because they are famous. They have to mess up really bad before the police get involved. That's what happens around celebrities quite often. \n\nOne of the reasons *I* don't take drugs is because I really like them, having tried a few times. I'm afraid I would let them take over my life and ruin me. And sometimes, that's exactly what happens to famous people (and *not* famous people too, you just don't see them in the headlines so much). So mostly (I think) celebrities very often have lots of difficulties and easy access to lots of money and lots of drugs and lots of people willing to sell them drugs. ",
"Lots of people die of drug overdoses without you or i ever knowing about it, but every time one famous person ODs it's in the news for weeks.\n\nIf you could somehow figure out how many 'famous people' there are on the world, then work out how many of those people OD in a given year, I suspect you'd find that the death rate wasn't *much* higher than average.\n\nThat said, HomerWells' answer below was very good. I suspect if you limit 'celebrities' to actors and singers the numbers do get higher, no pun intended."
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d99j3o | why does a balloon explode when you puncture it, but does a tire slowly deflate? | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/d99j3o/eli5_why_does_a_balloon_explode_when_you_puncture/ | {
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"Because a balloon is a thin stretched membrane where tear will spread. A tire is a lot less stretched, thicker and reinforced so it can sustain the forces on it.\n\nYou can reinforce a balloon with just a bit of tape and then puncture it trough the tape and it will not explode just leak slowly.",
"Tires are not only thicker, but also have different bands of metal (called steel belts) and sometimes fabrics like Kevlar. Because they have all of this reinforcement, when they get a hole poked in them, the rubber would like to just shred and explode like a balloon, but the woven steel belts and the fabric fibers that are all intertwined within the rubber keeps it from moving (almost at all). That is only the case as long as the tire pressure is low enough to be handled by the strength of those steel belts and fabric. If the pressure is too high, poking a hole will make a week point, pressure will start to escape and will almost instantly overwhelm the structural strength of the steel, fabric, and rubber, which is when you get a shredded/blown out tire. \n\nBalloons don't have any of that extra structure, so if you poke it, that very thin rubber just shreds apart because it doesn't have anything else holding it together but a very thin layer of low quality rubber."
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2cf2ss | is there any irrefutable proof that the big bang occurred or that the universe is still expanding? | Are there any other credible theories that explain the creation and the subsequent movement of the universe? | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/2cf2ss/eli5_is_there_any_irrefutable_proof_that_the_big/ | {
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"There's no such thing as 'irrefutable proof' outside of mathematics and formal logic. It doesn't exist, and science doesn't pretend to have it for anything. Seriously. You can't even irrefutably prove that the moon exists.\n\nWhat we do have is a [large range](_URL_0_) of different lines of evidence all of which converge on the same conclusion: that the universe seems to have at one time been a single point, and expanded outwards from there ever since. Is it possible that this conclusion is entirely wrong? Sure, it's possible. It's extremely unlikely though, and nobody has managed to come up with another model that explains the observational evidence as well as the big bang does, without also opening up a whole lot more new problems that it actually solves. That's about as close to being True as something can get in the real world.\n\nIt should also be noted that the same applies to all sorts of other fields, such as history, economics, etc: it's not possible to prove something to be correct, but if you have a bunch of different lines of evidence that all independently indicate that X seems to be the case, then X probably is the case. Conclusions are always going to be tentative, though, and new evidence can always come in. It's extremely rare though for a major scientific theory to be completely overturned by new evidence in the modern era. It's much more common to find that the old theory is actually a subset of a larger, more comprehensive theory."
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1cwpwk | voice classification | How are voices classified (soprano, tenor, bass, etc)? Is it based on the octave a person is singing in? What are some examples? I have no vocal music experience and I've always wondered this. | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/1cwpwk/eli5_voice_classification/ | {
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"It's to do with how high/low your range is. In most (but not all) cases, this is also directly related to whether or not you are male or female (i.e.: women typically have higher voices than men).\n\nSopranos (female) can usually get from Middle C + 2 octaves.\n\nAltos (female) can usually get from the F below Middle C + 2 octaves.\n\nTenors (male) can usually get from Middle C to 1 octave either side.\n\nBaritones can usually get from the 2nd G below Middle C + 2 octaves.\n\nOf course, this isn't set in stone. Every voice is different, and your range largely depends on your training (e.g.: \"choral\" vs \"operatic\"). So these definitions are rough guidelines at best, and individuals may be able to do much more or less.\n\nThis also leads into other distinctions, such as mezzo-soprano, contralto, etc, but the ones I've mentioned above will cover most of your everyday scenarios."
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8fczk6 | how does the "in the nose, out the mouth" trick help keep from throwing up? | [deleted] | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/8fczk6/eli5_how_does_the_in_the_nose_out_the_mouth_trick/ | {
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"It physically calms your body and brain and refocuses your mind away from the feeling of puking.\n\nWhen calm you're better able to control what your body is doing.",
"I don't remember where I saw this but smiling helps. I think it has something to do with your nervous system. "
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czebpr | what can insurance agents do that we can't? | As in, how are they able to get better rates vs me just putting my info into a website for a quote? | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/czebpr/eli5_what_can_insurance_agents_do_that_we_cant/ | {
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"It depends a lot on what you're looking for and who the agent is. On a general level, an insurance agent is very knowledgeable about insurance and can help you figure out the coverage that's right for you and navigate some of the pitfalls of selecting insurance. In short: they can help you make the right decisions, which might not always be obvious. In a lot of cases they're not going to recommend the *cheapest* option but focus on the *best value*. However, every insurance agent is going to have a certain pool of companies they sell for and they can really only recommend you options from that pool.\n\n*Captive agents* work directly for an insurance company and sell only that company's products. Typically buying from one of these agents will be the only way to purchase insurance from that company, so if you want that specific company's product you'll have to go through an agent (even if they let you sign up for insurance through the website they'll likely assign you an agent they expect you to work with). *Independent agents* contract with one or more insurance companies to sell their products but don't work for them directly. Some of those products you'll be able to bind directly yourself, but some might still require an agent (depends on the company).\n\nIn all cases agents will have access to the actual rating software for the companies they represent that allows them to provide you with an accurate payment, whereas an online quote will only give you a ballpark amount."
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1wybzt | how can we tell that the super bowl had 111.5 million viewers when multiple people watched the same tv at different parties? | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/1wybzt/eli5how_can_we_tell_that_the_super_bowl_had_1115/ | {
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"The polls ask both what they are watching and how many people are there.",
"It's not like those numbers are actually derived from counting the number of eyeballs watching screens at any given time. Certain people (Nielsen families) are selected by the Nielsen Media Research corporation and given special set-top boxes which report back to Nielsen when the TV is on and what's being watched. They're sometimes given diaries to record their watching habits in as well. Nielsen makes sure the sample of people given boxes is representative and uses the data from their sample to extrapolate to the population. They do basically the same things as polling firms do, but about TV shows.",
"This question concerns one of the most frequently asked topics on ELI5, so it has been removed. Try the searchbar next time please."
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4it7vk | diffraction and interference? | I watched a video about it, but I still don't get how they work. | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/4it7vk/eli5_diffraction_and_interference/ | {
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"Assuming that you're talking about light here, diffraction and interference are due to the nature of light as a wave.\n\nInterference is probably the best place to start, and we'll be considering waves in a pool.\n\nIf you imagine a series of water waves going from one end of the pool to the other, there are peaks and troughs on the surface of the pool in a regular spacing. These peaks and troughs move in the direction of \"propagation\", which is the term for the motion of a wave in space.\n\nIf you take a second, equal wave and run that in the opposite direction at the same time, the peaks and troughs of each wave interfere with the peaks and troughs of the other when they meet. If a peak meets another peak, they add together to make a doubly-high peak of water. This is called constructive interference, as they construct a higher peak. \n\nConversely, If a peak and a trough meet, they add together and cancel each other out, resulting in an undisturbed surface of water - this is destructive interference as they destruct each other and cancel.\n\nLight behaves the same way - there's a piece of equipment called a Michelson interferometer that splits a beam of light in two, then runs them back together again with the waves at a slightly different position in their cycle, so that the peaks of the second half of the beam are now troughs and the troughs are peaks.\n\nThis results in the \"destructive\" interference of light, which means that the light cancels itself out.\n\nDiffraction is a bit trickier.\n\nThe most readily accessible example of diffraction is that of water - if you observe water waves entering a harbour, you'll notice that the waves appear to \"bend\" a little when they pass the harbour wall, and the wave extends some way around the corner, even if the wave had no business changing its direction.\n\nThis can be explained using a principle in Physics called Huygen's Construction. This states that every point on a wavefront be modelled like a point source of a wave.\n\nEvery point on the crest of the wave as it touches the harbour wall corner acts like a wavelet - a mini wave. Each wavelet propagates in all directions, but neighbouring wavelets interfere as we saw before with our pool example.\n\nThis means that the wavefront is preserved but the corner of the harbour is bent around because there is no neighbouring wavelet to interfere on the side of the harbour wall, resulting in a bending effect, otherwise known as \"diffraction\".\n\nWe can see light doing the same thing. While there are other things to account for, shadows of objects close to the ground are better-defined and have sharper edges than those of objects further up as the light diffracts around an object further above the ground, resulting in a blurry shadow.\n\nThat's my explanation - if I've messed up somewhere or have any further questions, please let me know!\n\nEDIT - Cleaned up grammar. \n\n\"Damn it Jim, I'm a Physicist not an author\""
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amhyqe | how do dollar store nightlights and small electronics convert 110v to usable energy for a small led? | Sorry if this is the wrong sub but im curious to add to my personal projects but how do they do it so cheaply? | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/amhyqe/eli5_how_do_dollar_store_nightlights_and_small/ | {
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"Think of how small an iPhone charger cube is and then remember that while 120V AC is going in, it's only outputting 5 volts DC. Instead of a bulky transformer to step the voltage down, it uses various solid state discrete components and minimal ICs to get the desired voltage. Using similar technology, converting 120V AC to just a few volts DC to illuminate something as small as an LED is quite easy.\n\nTypically the first thing that happens is the 120VAC is routed through a mechanism called a [full bridge rectifier](_URL_0_) which is created by arranging 4 diodes in a particular configuration which converts the electricity into DC. There are usually a few capacitors and inductors just after the rectifier to smooth out or filter the ripples to create a smooth constant 170VDC voltage supply (the reason it's 170V and not 120V is outside the scope of this ELI5, but it's because 120VAC is not really 120VAC, it's more of an average). \n\nOnce there is a smooth DC voltage, an integrated circuit (IC, or \"smart\" chip) is used to control a MOSFET (an electrical switch) which chops up the 170VDC into very small chunks, VERY quickly. This high frequency DC is now fed through a small transformer with very thin windings (as opposed to the large wall-wart style) which outputs another AC supply, but at a smaller voltage, much closer to the desired final output voltage. This now-smaller AC supply is the rectified again, ran through more smoothing and filtering, and often other components to \"regulate\" the voltage to make sure you get a clean, reliable desired output voltage. \n\nTo illuminate an LED, the LED has what is called a \"forward voltage\" which is how much power is \"used up\" between the input and output. This is typically between 1.8 and 3.3V, depending on size and color. If supply 5V DC to an LED with a forward voltage of 3V, then you need a resistor to \"use up\" the left over voltage which is converted to heat. LEDs also have an operating current, or how many amps is required to use it, typically around 25-30mA. \n\nUsing Ohms Law (V=IR, or Voltage = Current * Resistance), you calculate the size of the resistor that you need in your circuit. You need to \"use up\" 2V at 25mA, so the formula is 2V = .025 * R where you solve for R. 2V/0.025 = 80 ohms. \n\nAdmittedly there is a bit of hand-waving going on with the circuit explanation, but this should give you a better understanding of how it can be possible. ",
"The simplest way you can do it is by just using a resistor and a led but it in inefficient. You can create a capasive dropper by adding a capacitor and in most case one of 4 regular diods. You can see it being done in practice in the a video by [\nbigclivedotcom\n](_URL_3_?)v=Q23uh7AjjXw)\n\n\nYou can see a old video of a a nightlight a _URL_1_ and there is a lot of teardown of LED lamps and other cunsumer products like that with explanation of how the work and schematics on that channel\n\n\nThe main idea with a [capasive dropper](_URL_2_) is when you put a capacitor in series with a AC voltage source. The AC power will go from 0 +V 0 -V 0 so for each half period the capacitor will get chargen and then discharge, If you connect a resistor in series the total amount of current that passes trough it for a half period is the amount that is used to charge and discharge the capacitor.\n\n\n\nThe LED is put in series with a resistor and when you know the current trough the system limited by the capacitor and the voltage you can calculate the value of the resistor so the voltage over the LED is what you like and you haver simple cheap but not that efficent power supply.\n\nFor high power LED lamps you most of the time have a lot of LED in series and a white have a voltage of ~3V and if you put a lot in seires the voltage you need 3* the number of diods. In a lamp like _URL_0_ you will see what look like 5 LED per side and 3 side and one on top but what look like a LED is a 3 LED module. So you have 5x3+1= 16 modules with a total of 16 X3=48 LEDS that need a voltage of 48x3= 144V. So on a UK power grid that have 240V nominal that has a peek of 340V only a relative small amount of voltage drop over the resistors.\n\n\nSo the components that is needed for a LED lamps is quite limited. You can have higher efficiency if you have a small transformer in the system to change the voltage but that is a relative expensive part. So a LED lamp is often not that efficient to keep the cost down. So desigs are a compromise between cost and efficiency so they are still a lot more efficient then a incandescent bulb but is more expensive.\n\n\n So most of the light bulb style LED lamps are optimized for cost not efficiency and more expensive more efficient lamps exist. At higher power levels like in floodlight you use more efficient power supply where the extra cost will not be a huge increase of the total but the power you need and heat that is needed to be radiated away ls lower."
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"https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9_nrP6PNOtg",
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"https://www.youtube.com/watch"
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5kxb19 | why haven't we made calorie free food that's cheap and actually tastes good? | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/5kxb19/eli5_why_havent_we_made_calorie_free_food_thats/ | {
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"Most of the usable calories in food come from fats and sugars. These things are also what make foods taste good, so taking them out also removes much of the pleasant taste. There are substitutes for sugar, but no proper substitutes for fat.",
"Your body does need calories. Making food that doesn't have any isn't really a solution to anything. I can see a lot of people getting very sick very quickly if that were a thing."
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36heb3 | the relevance of the hillary clinton email scandal | So lately I am still seeing the reports on Hillary Clinton using a private email account. Now they are saying they won't release the emails until 2016. I'm still wondering why this all matters. Is she being investigated for something else? Or is this just another thing with which reporters are wasting time for ratings? | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/36heb3/eli5_the_relevance_of_the_hillary_clinton_email/ | {
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"Well, I'd say it's pretty clear she chose to use those email accounts so that she could duck freedom of information requests. So if you dislike Obama's broken promises on transparency, then get ready for more of the same with Hillary.",
"The email scandal is actually pretty basic. While working for the State Department she was required to archive all public emails corresponding to her work. She did a few things to circumvent this:\n\n* On the day she was confirmed she purchased a private domain and eventually hosted her email there.\n* She used a private email address on a private server with poor security and had her closest aides do the same.\n* When she had to legally turn over her documents to the State Department she personally decided what was personal and what was public and then claims she deleted everything off the server rather than allowing anyone else to view or verify. Nobody at Oversight knows whether they received all public documents, it can be assumed they hadn't. If her goal was to provide all public documents to Oversight she wouldn't have had a private email account.\n* She was asked about additional email addresses that were used and even specific email aliases. Her lawyers lied about the use of additional email addresses for State business that she did not previously disclose.\n\nAdditionally, there are some \"scandals\" in the State Department depending on which political fence you are on. But regardless of whether or not you are a Democrat or Republican you should be supportive of Congress's role of oversight over the Executive branch. One such scandal is in relation to Benghazi, Libya where an American compound was attacked on September 11 just prior to an American election. The State Department had memos changed and blamed the attacks on a \"spontaneous\" reaction to a YouTube video nobody saw and stuck with that bullshit story for weeks. They refused to claim it was a terror attack on Sept 11 prior to the election because they wanted to protect the ruling political class from criticism.\n\nRepublicans are now investigating the attacks and the US response. Coincidentally the Secretary of State's emails have been wiped. Additionally, we have learned that a Clinton chrony was providing Hillary with bad intel in Libya. Obama would not allow him to work for the State Department so Hillary gave him a job at the Clinton Foundation and he also did some work for Media Matters (another Clinton started group to protect themselves in the media). His emails went to an alias the Clinton legal team lied about. And this chrony, Blumenthal, has a shady past and was working to benefit financially from a regime change in Libya. "
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6zxki9 | what do doctors do with unnecessary body parts like an appendix? | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/6zxki9/eli5_what_do_doctors_do_with_unnecessary_body/ | {
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"It's special Medical Waste. Yes, they throw them out, like the bloody sponges, unless they need to go to the lab for a biopsy.",
"The vet hospital of the local university has a chemical vat that they dissolve remains in, should the need arise. From what I understand they only do this if there is some reason which the animal cannot be disposed of by other means. Communicable animal diseases come to mind. ",
"It varies drastically across the world, but medical waste (including removed organs, but also many other forms of medical waste ranging from bloody bandages to used needles) is usually incinerated. _URL_0_",
"Biohazard waste (removed body parts and those disposable tools that come in contact with your blood, for instance) are destroyed in a way that is designed to make sure that no living cells could remain, such as dissolving in chemicals or burning to ash in an incinerator.\n\nI would like to point out that body parts that are removed are not necessarily unnecessary- even the appendix, the archetypical useless organ, is currently thought to provide some function (providing a safe store of positive bacteria to re-populate the intestines after something like diarrhea flushes them out)",
"Had my wisdom teeth pulled and wanted them. Was told no it's biohazard waste. How did they go from my extra teeth to biohazard in 30 minutes. No one could explain. Did not get them. ",
"Your appendix would go to the pathologist and get fixed in formalin initially so it could then be examined under a microscope to assess the cause. A very small number have tumours. In general most excised organs get sent to pathology before disposal. ",
"Doctors now think that the appendix plays an important role in maintaining the normal composition of bacteria in the gut by acting as a reservoir. Just thought I’d share that your appendix may not be useless. ",
"For the record even though this doesn't really pertain to your question: your appendix is [not totally useless](_URL_0_) as once thought. It produces gut flora, which is to say bacteria in your digestive tract that help digest food. You can live without it, but it's not useless.",
"It's not the biggest body part, but I worked in a lab that collected and used foreskins (from circumcisions). Infants tissues can be harvested for stem cells and it turns out cutting off other bits of the baby is commonly considered unethical.",
"I've got a story about the old methods of disposal. For reference, I am an environmental geologist and was working near Flint, MI a few years ago. Had to do a subsurface investigation at one of the vacant hospitals because for 30+ years they dumped all biowaste into an open pit west of the hospital. They filled in the \"skin pit\" (what my coworkers and I dubbed the dump) in the late 1980s with building debris from an old on-site church, and then paved over it for extra parking. We drilled the pit and found significant contamination, including formaldehyde, in the groundwater. All of the houses down-gradient of the hospital had to connect to city water. Pretty gross considering how long they were drinking that. ",
"Pathologists' Assistant and med tech here. When you get a body part removed it will come to the anatomic pathology lab or clinical lab. The clinical lab deals with liquids (blood, urine, spinal fluid, etc.) and microbiology while the anatomic lab is exactly that: for anatomic parts! \n\nSo if you got your appendix removed it will go the anatomic pathology lab to be \"grossed\" (measured, described) and sectioned. What we do to the appendix depends on what it was taken out for. \n\nNo matter what we will snip off the entire distal tip (the end opposite the side that attaches to the cecum) as that can harbor a kind of tumor called a carcinoid tumor. We will then serially section the appendix looking for any abnormalities. What does the lumen contain? Fecal material, fecoliths, blood, pus, nothing? How does the serosa (the outside of the appendix) look? Is it dull and not shiny? Does it have purulent exudate on it or the attached fat (mesoappendix)? Is it torn or is there a perforation? Finally, we look at how thick the wall of the appendix is (they are usually about 0.2 cm thick). \n\nA normal gross dictation of your presumably normal appendix that may have been incidentally taken out will look something like this:\n\nReceived fresh labeled with the patient's name, medical record number, and additionally labeled \"appendix\" is a 6.5 cm in length by 0.5 cm in diameter appendix with 2.0 cm of attached mesoappendix. The serosa is pink-tan, smooth, and glistening. The specimen is serially sectioned to reveal a 0.2 cm lumen containing blood and a 0.2 cm thick wall. Representative sections are submitted as follows:\n1A = entire distal tip bisected longitudinally\n1B = representative cross sections including inked proximal margin\n\nEdit: So if you have appendicitis I will look for purulent exudate on the serosa, in the appendix itself, and will make sure there isn't a perforation. \n\nEdit 2: The sections I submit in cassettes are then processed and cut by histotechs. These small (think micron size sections) are then stained (usually with hematoxylin and eosin) and the pathologist will examine the slide under the scope. They perform the final diagnosis; in the case of appendicitis looking for neutrophils inside the lumen. ",
"Most doctor surgeons are not paid very well and will eat the parts they remove to give them energy for their next part removal."
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222rqi | how can companies like malt-o-meal make cereal exactly like general mills and other major companies and not get sued? | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/222rqi/eli5_how_can_companies_like_maltomeal_make_cereal/ | {
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"Not patented. Same way anyone can make a type of cheese or a cola -- baseically just can't get caught stealing their recipe or using their trademarks (name, characters or things that might cause consumers to think they were buying the real general mills product).\n\nSee the same thing in fashion - everyone copies look/style."
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3oc2fe | why can't dogs eat onions? | I know it has something to do with blood cells but I don't understand it. | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/3oc2fe/eli5_why_cant_dogs_eat_onions/ | {
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"If I recall what a vet told me is that it breaks down their blood cells causing them to die because the oxygen can't get around their body, raisons do it too but are much deadlier. ",
"#Brief Overview\n\nOnions damage a dogs' red blood cells. Chemicals found in the onion lead to the dog developing *anaemia*, which is when it has too few red blood cells. This is because of how the onion's chemicals bond to the *hemoglobin* in our blood, which is what carries oxygen. The hemoglobin clumps up and doesn't work properly. This can lead to the dog becoming tired or weak.\n\n#Mechanism\n\nI've done some reading around how it works and have gone into more detail 'cause I think it's important.\nDrop me a line if it's out of line with the formatting or scope of ELI5, I don't do this often.\n\nThe onions cause toxicity by oxidizing hemoglobin; the protein in red blood cells that carries oxygen.^2 When oxidized, hemoglobin forms clumps, called *Heinz Bodies*.^2 [Here](_URL_4_)'s a picture of what Heinz Bodies look like in a cat's blood (they're the small red clusters). Normally, in dogs with onion toxicosis a moderate number of red blood cells may contain Heinz Bodies.^2 They don't usually cause life-threatening problems themselves; the red blood cells can still carry oxygen, just not as efficiently.^2 However, the red blood cells may also burst.^3 The Heinz Bodies cause problems by decreasing the red blood cell lifespan, which makes the dog anaemic.^2 Anaemia may be present several days after ingestion of a large amount of onions or after weeks or months from sustained consumption of small amounts ^2\n\nThe chemical in question that the onions contain is a sulfur based chemical called *Thiosulfate* or specifically, a *Thiosulfate ion* ( S₂O₃^2− ). ^3 As a sidenote, this kind of chemical contributes to the taste of onions. FYI, it's an [*anion*](_URL_1_) not an *onion* but in south London, we call them the same thing /s. [This paper from 2003](_URL_3_) isolates the substance and determines that, when garlic poisons dogs, the chemical responsible is *\"Sodium 2-Propenyl Thiosulfate\"* (a thiosulfate chemical).^4\n\nStronger onions and garlic increase a dog's risk of toxicosis.^1\nAround one fourth of a cup [0.0591 dm^3 ] can poison a 20-pound [9.07 kg] though the threshold for toxicity increases with the size of the dog.^2 Another source says that the threshold for toxicity is around 15 to 30 g/kg of onion or alternatively, 0.5% of the animals body mass of onion that can cause the condition.^3 A fourth threshold value is roughly 0.6 kg to 0.8 kg.^3 It's difficult to compare these values as onions will vary significantly in density and by variety. The values aren't completely relevent since you should go to the vet if your dog's eaten onions in any case.\nSmaller animals and cats are even more sensitive due to their low body mass.^2\n\nOnions are still poisonous when cooked or processed as onion powder.^2 Garlic can cause the same problems as onions, but toxicosis is less likely as smaller amounts are used.^2\n\nI've yet to find out how humans can physiologically overcome the onion's toxicity; if anyone finds out, feel free to message me.\n\n#Diagnosis\n\nAfter about 5 days, dogs become fatigued and their urine becomes dark or reddish.^1 ^2\nOther indicators are those also found with anemia, including:\n\n* low levels of oxygen,^2\n* lethargy and decreased stamina,^2 ^3\n* weakness,^2\n* pale or bluish gums, especially with exercise,^2\n* breathlessness, ^3\n* diarrhea, ^3\n* vomiting, ^3\n\nThe specific condition in question is called *Hemolytic Anemia*.^3 *Hemo* means \"blood\" and *lyt(ic)* means \"breaking down\" so this condition is the type of anemia, where blood cells are broken up.\n\nIn diagnostic and blood-work tests, you may find small purple clumps, in the blood, that indicate onion toxicity.^2\nAlthough a number of other compounds can lead to formation of the Heinz Bodies, onion toxicosis is the first differential.^2\nThe Heinz Bodies can be seen in the red blood cells under a microscope, especially when the cells are stained with a special stain called *New Methylene Blue*.^2\n\nOnion toxicosis is not very common; the Urbana Illinois ASPCA Poison Control Center annually records up to only a dozen cases of toxicosis from onion and its relatives (genus *Allium*).^2 Due to low dose exposure, pets may not develop signs severe enough to take to a vet or at least not sick enough to perform diagnostic bloodwork for a definitive diagnosis.^2\n\n#Treatment\n\nTreatment will require veterinary attention, may involve hospitalisation for several days and, in severe cases, even a blood transfusion.^1 ^2 ^3 Most affected dogs respond well to treatment and recover.^2\n\nTake your pet to the vet if they ingest onions.^2 While onion toxicity is not a common cause of these signs, consider onion toxicosis if you see these signs.^2 The vet may induce vomiting or administer a product to help decrease the absorption of the onions.^2 A quick trip to the vet is much easier and cheaper than a hospital stay.^2\n\n#Ref. List\n\n^1 [ASPCA Website](_URL_5_)\n\n^2 [Dr Sophia Yin Blog](_URL_0_)\n\n^3 [VPI Pet Insurance Website](_URL_2_)\n\n^4 [YAMATO, O, Y SUGIYAMA et al. *Isolation and Identification of Sodium 2-Propenyl\nThiosulfate from Boiled Garlic (Allium sativum)\nThat Oxidizes Canine Erythrocytes*, 2003.](_URL_3_) \n\nIf you can't tell, I'm trying to get into the habit of writing medical essays. Feel free to give me formatting notes or tell me what I've done wrong. Cheers!",
"So what is it about human physiology that makes this work differently for us?",
"I had no idea dogs couldn't eat onions; explains why my moms old dog always got paint-peeling farts when he ate 'em...",
"Onions are like ogres. If you try to eat an ogre, it will kill you. Likewise, if a dog tries to eat an onion, the onion will kill it."
]
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[],
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"http://drsophiayin.com/blog/entry/onions_the_secret_killer",
"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ion#Anions_and_cations",
"http://www.petinsurance.com/healthzone/pet-articles/pet-health-toxins/Pets-and-Onions.aspx",
"http://www.tandfonline.com/doi/pdf/10.1271/bbb.67.1594",
"https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/e/e3/Heinz_bodies_cat.jpg",
"https://www.aspca.org/pet-care/virtual-pet-behaviorist/dog-behavior/foods-are-hazardous-dogs"
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2194d5 | how do dating sites become successful if their success relies on a large number of members from the start? | Who would sign up to a dating site with only a few members? How does that site become more popular? I know that if I joined a site and I kept seeing the same person/match over and over again, I wouldn't use it anymore or recommend it to anyone. | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/2194d5/eli5_how_do_dating_sites_become_successful_if/ | {
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"Same as any service that requires a lot of people for success: you use really good marketing to convince a few people to try it until you get a self-sustaining community. Do you think Facebook and Twitter and Ebay and Amazon had billions of users from the get-go? Of course not! The community builds over time, starting with a few experimental and faithful people and spreading from there. "
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2rdbz1 | why do football helmets not have a soft layer on the outside to lessen the impact of two helmets smacking together? | It seems logical that some kind of padding on the outside as well as the inside would reduce impact to the brain. I did a little looking into it and there are some products out there like this which seem to work. Why is this technology not implemented for safety? | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/2rdbz1/eli5_why_do_football_helmets_not_have_a_soft/ | {
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"in an impact, alot of force is transfered. what feels \"soft\" to your hand means it'll compress to zero thickness without absorbing energy. that leads to the player's head impacting the really really hard shell. the foam that's inside the helmet is a hardish foam. it still compresses on impact. it just doesn't crush when you press your finger. "
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1jiz6o | why do you get money back from cans that you drink from but not the ones that hold food? | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/1jiz6o/eli5_why_do_you_get_money_back_from_cans_that_you/ | {
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"Usually there'll be a trash can nearby, when you cook food.\nA drink you can take with you anywhere, so people are more likely to litter.",
"Drink cans are usually aluminum, while food cans are usually steel. Aluminum is a more valuable metal.",
"Depends on where you live and what the rules are. Some places add a deposit to beverage cans and bottles with the tax, so you are not selling the can, but getting your deposit back. It's to encourage people to recycle. \n\nThere is some history, too. A long time ago, soda was sold in reusable bottles that were collected by the stores and sent back to the factory. Glass bottles had a deposit system, too. Then they switched to disposable cans with no deposit or collection program. People through them out of their car windows and made a mess of the highway. Others got mad and blamed Coke, Pepsi and others for the mess. The companies campaigned for highway cleanup to keep their image clean (_URL_0_), but people still wanted deposits and a collection program. Since then, beverage containers have gotten more attention than other item that were always disposable and don't get thrown all over highways and cities. "
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10wqqj | why is facebook stock falling? it's not like people have stopped using facebook and they still make a profit. | I didn't know where else to ask... | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/10wqqj/eli5_why_is_facebook_stock_falling_its_not_like/ | {
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"While you're partially correct, the stock is falling for two main reasons.\n\nFirstly, the shares were over priced to begin with. They were first sold for something like $38, when they should have started quite a bit lower like they planned on initially.\n\nSecondly, while people still use facebook, and it generates advertising revenue, investors can't see how the site can grow anymore. The reason Facebook is popular is because of it's simplicity. Remember the fallout when they made everyone get timeline? Changing things on social networks doesn't go down well, think MySpace. Investors can't see anyway for Facebook to grow it's profits, without losing huge chunks of users.\n\nThey can't ask for a sign-up fee, the site will lose over half it's users. They can shove more ads onto a page, but that will also receive a lot of backlash. \n\nThere is no positive way (yet) Facebook can generate profit, that benefits the user. ",
"This is a great question. People bought Facebook not because it was doing well at the time, but on the hopes that it would skyrocket in the near future like Google did in its early days. This is what we call 'speculation'.\n\nThey were doing alright, they are still doing alright, but not incredibly amazing. This is causing a lot of disappointment in the people that owned it and they are cashing out.\n\nAnother major reason is that the price that it started selling at, $38, was way too high for a company in the position it was in at the time. I mean, would you pay $500 for an Xbox 360 today? But people bought it on hype, not facts, and reality is essentially sinking in that Facebook isn't a rocket ship.",
"Let's just back up for a moment...\n\n**What is a stock price?**\n\nIt is a ownership share in a company. It is a small portion of the value of the company. If, hypothetically, a person wanted to buy all the shares in a company, that is at least the price they would have to pay, just as you wouldn't typically resell your concert tickets for less than ticket price.\n\n**How do people figure out how much it is worth?**\n\nHow do you calculate how much your house is worth? You see what the going rate for the land is in your area, you look at the state of the building, you look at what the **potential** is for the property, and many other factors.\n\nWell all these factors add up and you can get an idea how much *you* would pay for a house depending on how you deem which factors important.\n\nCompany stocks are a bit like that too. A stock price should, in a nutshell, represent the total of the company's assets, its future potential, its tax and contract liabilities and a whole bunch of other factors.\n\nNow it is the future potential that people speculate on as, unlike assets, this can be more subjective. When it was floated, a lot of people were probably expecting facebook to haul in more profits and be a more viable business model than it is. This is understandable, as sometimes you never know what is going to happen. It has declined in price because it hasn't delivered on those earlier expectations.\n\nThus, it is possible for a company to still turn giant profits and have their share price collapse because relative to what was expected of them before, they are not doing as well.\n"
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3cypcz | why is batman fighting superman? | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/3cypcz/eli5_why_is_batman_fighting_superman/ | {
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"Looked to me like someone Bruce Wayne cared about died during the destruction of Metropolis and Batman is holding a grudge against superman because of it. "
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wedfg | - why do automobiles lose such a drastic amount of power by turning the ac on? | I've had people explain that it has something to do with the motor now being responsible for powering a compressor to run the AC which detracts from the motor's ability to function.
But seriously, we've been building cars for over a century. How the fuck has this HUGE limitation not been addressed and rectified? | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/wedfg/eli5_why_do_automobiles_lose_such_a_drastic/ | {
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"The engine doesn't lose any power that it's producing at whatever gearing, temperature, and RPM it's at - what's happening is that the A/C unit needs a non-negligible amount of power (mechanical or otherwise) to run. \n\nExample: so if your car (I am pulling ALL of these numbers out of my butt) is doing steady 40mph in second gear at 2500 RPM, which means the the engine is producing 500 watts and 450 watts (90% mechanical efficiency) are going to your wheels and counteracting operating friction and air resistance. \n\nIt's hot, you turn on the A/C on full blast, it's cooling your cabin at 40 watts. Your engine is still running at 2500 RPM in second gear, and still producing 500 watts, but now 40 watts are dedicated to your A/C - it's as if your wheels see an engine running at 460 W instead of 500 W, and after loss, instead of your wheels getting (90%) * (500 W) = 450 W, your wheels now receive (90%) * (460 W) = 414 W. \n\nBecause the the way your motor was running before you flipped on the A/C, 2500 RPM in 2nd gear, was enough to stay steady going 40 mph, and now with the A/C on, 2500 RPM in 2nd gear, less power is being used to drive, you either slow down, or you have to make your engine work harder (by giving more throttle, or downshifting, or running the engine at a higher RPM). \n\nThe more you want to cool the air in your cabin, the more watts you need coming from your A/C system. Over the years we've gotten a little more efficient with our A/C units, but 40 W of cooling will always require (more than 100%)*(40 W) worth of power to provide, and that power has to come from somewhere. Since your engine is so powerful, and can provide power for vastly more time than your battery, we've engineered most A/C systems in car to use drive belts that directly attach to the engine, vs. having to charge the battery and then use battery power to run the A/C compressor. "
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ejhxd2 | if skulls don't have prominent nose bones, why do noses protrude so much and feel so hard? | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/ejhxd2/eli5_if_skulls_dont_have_prominent_nose_bones_why/ | {
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1ptlix | why do some people lose weight after taking up smoking? does the same thing happen with e-cigarettes? | I am NOT planning on taking up smoking at all. I do have friends who smoke and are reluctant to give it up because of the weight loss they have experienced. I've also noticed that many of my coworkers who smoke are skinnier than those who don't. What exactly is happening? | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/1ptlix/eli5_why_do_some_people_lose_weight_after_taking/ | {
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"Those people are replacing their snack cravings with cigarette cravings, which while being overall terrible for your health, do have the benefit of being calorie free. Not to mention they are pricy which probably cuts into the food budget for a lot of people. ",
"Nicotine works by attatching to receptors on your cells. When this happens, it changes the chemistry of the cell and has the various effects that nicotine has. \n\nOne of the receptors kinda fits on one that is used for the fight or flight response, so it sort of activates that effect. Part of this is lowering your appetite. Ignoring dosage and what other chemicals are in the e-cig, it should have the same effect. "
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2jk67g | how is isis able to sell oil on the black market to the tune of $3,000,000/day? who is buying it, where does the oil end up, and how does this network remain active? | I've actually Googled this, but the answers are so convoluted that I can't make real sense of it. They are apparently selling oil on the black market in Turkey, but that doesn't explain where the oil is going. Or how they can possibly make as much as $3,000,000 per day selling it. I just can't imagine that much oil simply disappearing or being dispersed fast enough that their opponents couldn't stop it.
Which leads to the next related question. With the money they make from oil, they are buying new, modern high-quality weapons. Who is selling them these weapons, including the ammunition? More importantly, where are they getting the continued support for these weapons?
It's all very confusing.
**EDIT** While I absolutely, completely, genuinely appreciate all the responses, nearly all of them are guesses or assumptions about the region or the oil industry. Can anyone ELI5 with some real-world research?
**EDIT 2** Well look at that. I go to bed a wake up to an amazing set of detailed answers. Once I get to a computer (on my phone at the moment), I'll note some of the best answers by name, so they can get their deserved recognition. Some of the best ones are still buried with just a few upvotes, and they deserve more.
**EDIT 3** As promised, here are some of the best answers. Not only are they precise and factually-based, but they are clearly explained (which is the heart of this subreddit):
/u/RigidlyDefinedArea : [Answers both questions succinctly > ](_URL_0_)
/u/allblackhoodie : [Links and extensively quotes an excellent article on the subject > ](_URL_1_)
/u/DivinityGod : [A true ELI5 of how the black market for oil actually works > ](_URL_2_)
Give the fine individuals all of your upvotes. | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/2jk67g/eli5_how_is_isis_able_to_sell_oil_on_the_black/ | {
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"Turkey produces and transports a significant amount of oil. Most of the effort in securing this oil is to ensure that nobody steals it or disrupts its delivery, but very little infrastructure exists to ensure that illicit oil is not being added to the system.\n\nBefore oil ever makes it into a pipeline or a ship, it has to be transported from its site of origin to a terminal. There are small ground-based wells all over the region and their production is not well regulated. A small operator can simply overreport production and then send a tanker of oil from a different, illicit well and take a sizable kickback for very little work.",
"who is selling weapons: same black market weapons dealers that are selling to anyone with cash.\n\nyou should watch the movie Lord of War :)",
"Not sure how ISIS is selling their oil but this reminds me of how Mexican cartels are stealing oil and gas... They tap into pipelines or holdup gasplants and sell petroleum on black markets that end up in the US.\n\n_URL_0_",
"Middle men probably pay a big role in this. Since ISIS is so despised, it may need to sell its oil for less than the market price. If they try to sell at 70% of the price, I'm sure that a lot of people would see that as a massively lucrative opportunity. They can buy the oil at 70 cents on the dollar, and sell it to an unsuspecting buyer for a massive profit of 30%.",
"I used to think that the US brought it. But, after looking into the Bretton Woods Agreement and the PetroDollar, I don't think it is.\n\nJust a quick description...The US has deals around the world that means that all oil has to be sold in USD. If it were sold in another currency by a lot of countries it would have major implications for the US. \n\nWith ISIS selling oil so cheap, other countries could buy from them, perhaps in their own currencies, and bypass the Bretton Woods Agreement, meaning they have no need or less need for USD? Do we know what currency ISIS are taking the payments in? Countries such Russia and China are trying to ditch the Dollar in favor of their own currencies as it is. I'm not implying this is what is happening, just something that I thought of while reading this. Is this possible? ",
"Corruption is common place in these parts of the world. Even the \"governing bodies\" that are put into place are bought and paid for from the get go. Everyone greases palms with cash and laughs all the way to the bank.",
"Part of it is the black market in Turkey which was already mentioned. Another overlooked part of ISIS's oil market is the people in the territory controlled by ISIS. Those people are in desperate need of energy so they are forced to buy oil from ISIS. ",
"south eastern turkey has been involved in oil smuggling long before isis.\ntankers drive into iraq, buy the oil from isis (or kurds, before that). fake documentation. all in order. stamp! pass. smuggled oil is sold on actual gas stations under the name \"discount! cheap diesel!\". \n\nsee *lord of war* for illegal arms dealing.",
"The TL;DR version is basically, the barrels of oil don't have giant white text on the side that reads \"ISIS OIL\"\n\nOil is very precious to people for a lot of very good reasons and a lot of them just don't care where in came from.",
"I want to bring up a point about significant figures.\n\nYour quoted rate of $3M/day has only one sig fig, so there's a lot of uncertainty. \n\nCNN's quoted rate is $2M/day so this also highlights the fact that all these figures are being pulled out of people ass. Reporters or yours, its all guesses.\n\n[Source for CNN's figure](_URL_0_)",
"Finally! Someone has asked the question I have been wondering since day one. Who is funding or where is the money coming from?!",
"The Wall St Journal had a really good article about this recently. I don't know if this answers all of your questions but it gives a good timeline of what takes place. If you have WSJ access the article is here: \n\n_URL_0_\n\nIf not, here are some of the highlights:\n\n\"**The route begins with oil fields run just a few years ago by Western energy giants and now controlled, along with fuel-smuggling operations in Syria, by the Islamic State**.\n\n**The militants truck oil drawn from those fields or stolen from pipelines to rudimentary refineries**, according to Syrian human-rights activists, Western and Turkish government officials, and a Syrian businessman involved in the trade.\n\n**The refined products are sent to the Turkish frontier, where they're hauled over the border by trucks, horses or mules**, according to these accounts. **Fuel has also been floated across rivers on rafts or pumped through underground pipelines before finding its way to markets across southern Turkey.**\n\nInitially, Turkey largely turned a blind eye to the illicit fuel trade, which ramped up at the start of the Syrian uprising in 2011 **along smuggling routes that have existed for decades.**\n\nEven as the Islamic State, also known as ISIL or ISIS, solidified its control of the trade, Ankara shied away from an overly aggressive stance. The militant group has been holding 49 Turkish diplomats since June 11 and has released videos depicting grisly executions of battlefield prisoners and hostages, including the beheading of two U.S. journalists and a British aid worker.\n\n**Oil fields it controls are producing an estimated 100,000 barrels a day**, or about 3.2 million gallons, according to analysts and a Western official familiar with the operations—about as much as Sudan.\n\n**Much of that is refined and smuggled out to neighboring countries. The revenue can bring in as much as about $2 million a day**, estimates Luay al-Khatteeb, a visiting fellow at the Brookings Doha Center.\n\nIn the past two weeks, the Turkish military says security forces have confiscated more than 3,540 gallons of fuel, over 2,300 meters (1.4 miles) of **pipe used for smuggling fuel, and other equipment at the Turkish-Syrian border. **\n\n**The fuel emerges from fields in eastern Syria once operated by France's Total SA and Royal Dutch Shell, which both left the country in 2011 amid spiraling violence. **\n\nIn late 2012, the Western-backed rebel group the **Free Syrian Army took control of the Deir ez-Zor fields, and then the Islamic State seized them this year.** Representatives of the foreign companies that once operated there say they have no information about the state of the fields now. But **many local employees stayed on, keeping the oil pumping as the facilities changed hands between rival factions**, according to Syrian activists in the region and recent video of the facilities.\n\n**Crude from these fields, as well as oil stolen from tapped pipelines and from other fields across the country, is processed into low-quality fuels, including diesel, in a number of makeshift refineries in Islamic State-controlled Raqqa province**, according to human-rights activists from the region and the businessman involved in the trade.\n\nThe largest of these plants is near the town of Akrish, the location of a major pumping station along a pipeline transporting oil from fields in Hasakah province.\n\nIn 2012, Syrian businessman Mohamed Dada saw an opportunity. He said he spent about $860,000 buying Turkish- and Iranian-made equipment to build four small refining plants near the Syrian border town of Tal Abyad. Earlier this year, however, Islamic State militants seized the Tal Abyad refineries, according to Mr. Dada and Ibrahim Muslem, a human-rights activist familiar with the region. Mr. Dada, who now lives in Turkey, says his equipment was moved from Tal Abyad to neighboring Tal Suluq, a town located at a major crossroad between eastern and western Syria.\n\nSeveral rebel groups, including the al Qaeda affiliate Jabhat al-Nusra, held sway at different times in Tal Abyad, but Mr. Dada and other Turkish and Syrian businessmen ran the operation, he said. He didn't pay the rebels, but promised to buy crude from some of them. He said his drivers often had to pay for access to rebel-controlled roads—anywhere from $500 to $1,000.\n\n**Mr. Dada said his plants are still operating, but they are under the direct control of Islamic State militants**, based on conversations he's had with people still working there.\n\nMr. Dada, who estimates that he lost about $2.5 million, including the money he sunk into the plants, pipelines, depots and five tanker trucks, said about a third of his former employees work at the new location, but the rest fled to Turkey.\n\n\"Abu Luqman decides who gets the oil,\" Mr. Muslem said.\n\n**At Mr. Luqman's discretion, smugglers pay for fuel and load it into tanker trucks. Refined products from the Akrish refinery are driven more than 200 miles to Syrian villages near the Turkish border**, according to Mr. Muslem. **The fuel from Mr. Dada's operations was also being trucked to Turkey when he was in charge. Now, though, it makes its way to Islamic State-controlled parts of Iraq**, including Mosul, Mr. Dada said.\n\n**In Syrian towns along the Turkish border, trucks are unloaded and some of the fuel is repackaged into smaller containers, according to the Turkish military, local residents and drivers. Some makes its way into Turkey in small, plastic jerrycans, which mules carry over a maze of roads. in largely unpatrolled hills and olive groves**\n\nSome of the fuel is driven through legitimate border crossings, hidden on trucks or farm equipment, like tractors, that pass back and forth across the border legally. **Turkish authorities have also found underground pipelines**, some as long as 3 miles (4.8 kilometers), under the hilly border. In a Sept. 9 raid, the Turkish military said it confiscated fuel from a 300-yard-long underground pipeline.\n\n**Smugglers also load up rafts with diesel-filled jerrycans and float them across the Orontes river**, near Hacipasa. **Once across the border, it is sold by residents in the southern Turkish towns of Hatay province at local markets for discounts of as much as 30% to legitimately sourced diesel**, according to drivers and Hatay residents.\"\n\n_URL_1_",
"_URL_0_\n\nAs for who buys it, a lot of gas stations in Turkey have a big tank out back where you can buy \"cheap\" petrol if you are a familiar face. If the cops were to crack down seriously on it they would know immediately that it wasnt legit oil, since Turk refineries add an indicator chemical to mark their product. Recently turkey has made more of an effort as a result of US complaints, but even so you've got to understand that the country is largely still struggling with corruption issues. \n\nWashington post and NY times have been great about running stories concerning the smuggling issue. Do some digging there and you'll piece it together pretty quick on your own. With a complex geopolitical issue like this you can really only trust your own opinions. ",
"Wow just wanted to say excellent question. But your edit is correct, you seem to have stumped reddit. This is the most upvoted ELI5 post I've seen without an actual sourced backed response.\nEdit- we seemed to have gotten a lot better response since this comment, check out the comments on ops new edit.",
"Your two questions are related to two very lucrative areas of the black market. Your answers will have to be in broad strokes, because if details were so well known, then it wouldn't be a very effective black market.\n\nWhere is the oil going?\nThe majority of oil that ISIS sells actually gets sold within Iraq, while some does make its way around Syria, Turkey, and Iran, especially to Kurdistan areas. These areas have long had established smuggling routes for things like oil (from trying to establish a Kurdish state within Iraq etc.) The reality is that some of the \"opponents\" of ISIS are buying this oil indirectly, though likely with some knowledge of where it comes from.\n\nThey may make AS MUCH as 3 million a day, but the proper estimates are around 1-2 million. That isn't really that much in the big picture. \n\nWho sells the oil?\nISIS individuals sell the crude oil at a discounted rate (about 25% or less normal market value) to brokers. These brokers are the ones who resell this oil at about double the value they purchased it to more legitimate local sources and communities where it can be refined and used very cheaply. ISIS from these same brokers can buy refined oil/gasoline to use and resell in their territory, in addition to the hard cash they receive.\n\nWhy can't their opponents stop it?\nThat needs two answers:\n1) Stop creation of the oil - They can. That is extremely easy, but the U.S. and others do not want to do that because of the immense loss of infrastructure destroying oil wells and refineries under ISIS control would cause in the long run. Also, a lot of smaller communities and especially those under ISIS control rely on these sources of income. There would be an incredible amount of regional hardship to just destroy the oil production.\n2) The smuggling and selling - It is hard to do because there are a lot of small deals going down and it is a lot of ground to cover and monitor. It also is because, unfortunately, some of the regional players who are \"opposed\" to ISIS are not willing to crack down because if people in their country are getting oil at half the price or better for heat and what not, the reaction to losing that outright or facing drastically higher prices is not ideal.\n\nHopefully that covers your basic question. I will respond to the arms market one in an edit. That is a totally different ball game, though I have a little bit more knowledge on that front so hopefully I can help you understand. If you have any need for clarification just ask.\n\nEDIT -\nThe ISIS arms situation is not simple, nor something we have an excessive amount of information about right now. In short, they get their weapons and ammunition in two ways: 1) Captured from Iraqi and Syrian military bases and outposts, and 2) Buying it on the black market.\n\nThe first one is kind of well known as an issue, when Iraqi units several months ago were just surrendering their posts and equipment, a lot of which is from the U.S. and quite advanced. That said, ISIS is not actually USING most heavy or high-technology stuff they capture, instead just destroying it. That's for two simple reasons: They cannot operate it (not trained how, tanks are not just some car) and they cannot maintain them (parts and mechanics are lacking). \n\nWhat ISIS prefers is the standard militia group's bread and butter, small arms and light weapons. These can come from a lot of places, but we know that Syrian fighters and indeed ISIS have likely gotten support through back-channels from Gulf countries. They either export arms directly, or acquire it in Croatia or other MAJOR black market arms exporters in Eastern Europe and it lands in Turkey. Moving it across the border into Syria is then not difficult.\n\nThe private and black arms market is incredibly complicated and incredibly, well, immoral. Money talks, not your ideology. That is how they are getting continued support. Governments may be opposed to ISIS (or at least say they are), but black market business certainly is not, at least in some cases.\n\nThe combination of captured arms of Iraq, Syria, and illegal arms from Croatia (some made in the U.S.) and Saudi Arabia/Gulf States has made ISIS very heavily armed with a wide diversity of weapons which are dangerous, but they cannot use them all so to speak.",
"The Syrian (Assad) government, actually. I asked this question to my professor Joshua Landis, who is regarded as a Syrian expert.\n\nTo put it in ELI5 terms, the Syrian government has lots of money and valuable things like gold and other resources, but because of international pressures they can't buy oil, which they need to power their tanks and planes and keep fighting rebels. ISIS has plenty of oil, but because of international pressures can't really do anything with it. Except, of course, with the Assad regime. So right now Assad is buying oil from ISIS and using it to fight rebels, and ISIS is using that money to buy arms and soldiers to fight Kurds and Shiites. They're enemies, but they each have something the other one needs, and so they cooperate for the time being.\n\n**edit** it's not like an ISIS fuel truck drives up to a Syrian oil depot and just sells oil directly. They use Turkish middlemen as some people here have noted, but Assad knows that the oil is from ISIS, and ISIS knows that the buyer is Assad.",
"This will get lost, but as someone who has worked extensively in conflict minerals I know this applies. \n\nTo be hones it's done in the way that conflict minerals are brought to market. \n\nFor example, say you owned a nickel mine in South Africa. I show up and go hey /u/notBrit I got 80 truck loads of tin from the Congo, but see I can't sell it on the open market for various reasons, how about you buy it from me for 1/4 or 1/2 the market value and we say it came from your mine? You go, hey that is great, sounds good and draw up some paperwork showing how you got an extra 80 truck loads of Tin from your mine over the last quarter. You sell this tin to some smelter (which aggregates Tin from around the world) that sells it to GM, which has all this fancy paperwork showing that its Tin came from South Africa and is conflict free and has absolutely no trail to the 10 million dollars in new arms that Congo Warlords just bought with a illicit tin sale. \n\nThat actually happens in real life. \n\nSo, in this case, some guy goes to a refinery or another oil field or a sympathetic company/country/friend and goes \"Hey, we got some high grade oil that we need to sell but we can't sell it on the open market, want to buy it at 50% markoff\" \n\nThis guy does not know if it comes from ISIS, Iran or some OPEC country which needs a little extra cash on the side, some Saudi Prince who wants another villa, a country trying to buy arms that wants to do it on the down low ect (all valid sources of discounted oil) so he says sure and voila a few tankers of oil show up a day extra in the 100-1000+ tankers that show up daily to that refinery and no one has any idea. This is basically how resources that need to be sold are sold on grey markets around the world. No one asks questions because as a refinery which is already making a pretty close profit margin, a few tankers of oil @ 50% world price helps a lot. Not to mention the paperwork needed to validate these sales is laughable and is all that is required to bring it to Western Markets. ",
"Essentially they're using cheaper mobile mobile refineries to produce the lower grade type of fuels you get from oil and selling it in the area where all the regions oil goes to be sold. They're selling it at a discount to easily find buyers on the down low. When it gets to this oil hub it basically gets lost in the sea of oil transfers.\n\nIn the grand scheme of things their oil production is tiny and it's easy for it to get lost and written off inside the industry. \n\nParaphrasing here. NPR did a good segment on just this question and answered it pretty well. \n\n_URL_0_",
"No one can answer you, bc the US State Dept doesnt even have an answer. Rather than prohibit ISIS oil sales, the US is bombing Syria's oil refineries, which they wanted to do in 2013, making ISIS more an excuse rather than a cause.",
"It's quite simple really. It's oil! You might as well ask \"How are mexican drug lords able to sell cocaine on the black market\" or \"How are African warlords able to sell blood diamonds on the black market\".\n\nThe answer is because tons and tons of money. From the 3 million they buy the oil off Isis they can turn around and make ten, maybe 100 times that. And the best thing is that crude oil doesn't have any serial numbers. or any other way to identify it. Banks and other financial institutions will typically have safeguards against money laundering, But oil is just oil. You can trace a drop of oil back to it's origin. It's brilliant. I mean who wouldn't want to make an extra 27 million, they can just spend without having to do any clever bookkeeping, every day?\n",
"Ever heard of Scott Bennett? He is a former DOD Psy-Ops officer in charge of tracing terrorist funding. He argues that ISIS isn't funded by oil at all. The Swiss Bank, UBS, is facilitating rich Saudi, Qatari, and Turkish oil barons to fund them. Interview here: _URL_1_\n\nPlease support him by picking up his book Shell Game here: _URL_0_",
"At first I thought gas is gonna go up because of the unrest in the middle east but I'm baffled it's going down at this rate.There's a new player in the game and they play dirty. If oil keeps sliding down ISIS wins basically. The world economy will shatter.",
"When you go the pump, do you ask where your gas is coming from? No, nobody does. Nobody gives a shit, as long as they can still drive through the McDonalds drive thru to get there 6th meal of the day.",
"ELI5: how anyone in this thread could possibly know the answer to these questions?",
"Better question... How is America going to war with the ISIS, when it supports and trades with Saudi Arabia, whom fund the ISIS in the war against USA? ",
"Once the oil is on the market nobody fucking cares. Oil is oil. \n\nThey took over locations with facilities and delivery methods. They just continued to use them and probably sell to the same people the previous owners sold to because they just want the oil. \n\nOn top of that since ISIS' \"investment here is negligible they can afford to sell at lower prices and in fact may be selling at a cost that may not recoup their maintenance because they realize it is possible they might be overrun by a more powerful nation at some point and need to wring all the money out of this ASAP. ",
"The main goal of the USA/CIA is preserve our economy and our economy depends on the petrodollar(US dollar) being the sole currency used in the purchase and selling of oil throughout the world. America does not mind ISIS selling oil despite what you hear. The fact is America does not have anything against anyone selling oil in US Dollars.\nSo why are we fighting ISIS?... IRAN. Iran a Shiite country is threatened by ISIS a radical Sunni movement sweeping the region. America wants IRAN back on the Petrodollar so the USA fights on the side of Iran as good gesture. Iran has one of the biggest oil reserves in the world and Russia and China just made a deal to get off the petrodollar. This makes Iran's participation in the petrodollar exchange vital to US National Security.\n\nNext Stop Venezuela. \n",
"Vice has a piece on Mexican cartels stealing oil from the Mexican state owned oil company and selling it on the black market, much of it ending up in Texas.\n\nThe simple answer is they sell it dirt cheap, and companies can't resist. If it's able to corrupt US oil dealers, imagine how easy it is in that region.",
"Thanks for asking this. I am also curious as to how this happens.",
"1. ISIS is making between US$1 to US$3 MM/day. Accurate numbers are impossible to come by. Estimates are all that can be made. Even assuming the lowest number, it’s still enough to finance their operations with ease.\n\n2. Turkey is taking much of the oil ISIS “produces,” but not all of it. What goes to Turkey is mostly via tanker trucks. Very little is going by pipeline.\n\n3. There are two Sea based oil delivery platforms in the area. Both are known to be “in the shade.” They take oil from places that many others don’t want to deal with. Usually the scum in the are who have stolen the oil they are selling. They mix it in with legit oil, and act like it all came from the same place. All of this arrives by truck.\n\n4. Turkey\n * does NOT hate the Kurds\n * does NOT side with ISIS\n * wants ISIS to eradicate Iran backed Syrian leadership. “the enemy of my enemy is my friend.” That is why they don’t want to fight them with anything remotely close to “force.\"\n * If drawn into the fight, Turkey would be forced to fight with Kurd separatists, which they are loathe to do. Turkey sees it’s self as the “leader” in the area. (yes, it’s not lost on people that they are NOT leading, and are actively dragging their feet, to put it kindly, see next point)\n * Turkey, believing they will be the top dog in the region in future years, wants everyone else to play by their rules. This is not sitting well with other countries who are actually doing something.\n\n5. Oil Disappearing (bbl = barrel)\n * assuming they are getting US$50/bbl, they only need to sell 60,000 bbls/day to make US$3,000,000. 20,000 bbl/day to make US$1,000,000\n * Iraq produces over 3,000,000 bbls/day\n * ISIS is essentially a pickpocket.\n\nI’m not sure what you mean by “their opponents.” The money that ISIS is making only hurts those they take it from. The people who are the enemy of ISIS, are not willing to do what it takes to defeat them. That’s largely due to President Tee-Time saying “no boots on the ground.” Like a fool he telegraphed his intentions. Just as he did with leaving Iraq. Look how well that turned out.\n\n6. Weapons\n * Some of the weapons ISIS is using were left by the IRAQ military who ran from the fight. They have been seen driving HUMVEES. It’s unknown how they got them. \n * ISIS was able to get into Military bases, and steal VERY sophisticated US made systems. (yea that pull out was a master stroke)\n * ISIS is using Soviet made tanks that the Syrian rebels, the same group that John McCain wanted to arm, sold to them.\n * Saudi Arabia is believed to have sold/given weapons to ISIS.\n * Qatar is also selling them weapons, and is their banker. They also give them a place to contact other groups in safety.\n * Some of the weaponry is coming out of Afghanistan, Jordan; and was destined for, you guessed it; the Syrian Rebels.\n\nI’m sure you don’t have to guess who the Syrian rebels are fighting with.",
"I wrote about this for The Daily Star in Lebanon (middle east English language newspaper). ISIS oil revenues are already running very low, the $3m estimate was hugely overblown but a great soundbite so it's done the rounds without anyone sitting down to actually think about it. \n\nThe actual figures are closer to $250,000 per day, at their very very peak was probably a mil.\n\nThe buyers were Assad regime, illegal distributors in southern Turkey, and some Kurdish smugglers. Oil transported overland in trucks. some refineries were being operated by foreigners on behalf of ISIS (and in some cases guarded by western security firms)? But the sotloff, foley, henning and iraqi beheadings have now scared them off, plus air strikes have put a few of them out of action. So now it's a fairly small operation and not to be worried about.\n\nIn fact, all signs from within their own territory and Baghdad people point to ISIS now running low on cash. Services will soon have to be cut which will piss off those living under them. Containment by Christmas is a possibility.\n\nEDIT\n\nHERE'S THE ARTICLE _URL_0_\n",
"Ask the CIA. They're the fuck wads that know all about the black Ops and underground markets because they probably created them. There is so much that the general public does not know, which makes this ELI5 difficult to explain accurately, because it deals with stuff that hasn't been truly revealed and most people wouldn't believe anyway.",
"shame on those who do business with these murderers",
"Here is a very interesting report which touches on how illegal oil is sold in to black and grey markets in another region: Nigeria. _URL_0_\n\nits done by traders who operate on the margins of the market, who disguise shipments and sell them on. \nThere is a very large shadow business in the oil world, and the only reason why people don't know about it is that it has been working in the US's favour until now. Nobody in the US congress ever wanted to look under the rock because it was working for them. \n",
"Quite off topic but why isn't this the fundamental argument for increasing funding to becoming entirely energy self sufficient? Hell, even if you don't care about the environment, wouldn't every individual implicated in the oil trade be creating the demand which allows so many of these organizations to finance their activities? ",
"Jeff Bridges is running down his accumulated wealth to relive his role in the first Ironman movie. ",
"[Relevant](_URL_0_)\n\nOil can be siphoned off onto tanker trucks and sold at a discount to a legit place that is also pumping oil. This make it look like the legit place is pumping more than usual and more productive than it actually looks. So sort of like oil-laundering.\n Imagine being a farmer looking to sell his corn at market prices and having the opportunity to buy additional corn for a discount (which he could sell at market prices) --the market just sees a extra productive farmer - even if the extra corn is stolen!",
"You should know that in the world of high money business, little things like dealing with terrorists matters not at all.\n\n\nOil is in demand by certain groups, ISIS will sell it to them cheaper than others would. ISIS got itself a customer.\n\n\nAs for weapons, well there are countries with an interest to destabilize the middle east even further, the CIA is probably selling them weapons.\nIf not, then some private arms dealers who acquire weapons from agencies like the CIA but of other countries too.",
"From Thierry Meyssan's article:\r\rWhen states under embargo try to sell gas or oil on the international market, they do not succeed. But the Islamic Emirate does, despite resolutions 1373 (2001) and 2170 (2014) of the Security Council. Publicly notorious, it steals oil in Iraq and Syria, routing it by pipeline to the Turkish port of Ceyhan, from where it is transported to Israel by tankers of the Palmali Shipping & Agency JSC, the Turkish-Azeri company of billionaire Mubariz Gurbanoğlu. At the port of Ashkelon, Israeli authorities provide false certificates of origin from Eilat, then they are exported to the European Union, which pretends to believe they’re Israeli.\r\r_URL_0_",
"\nThe oil is sold as crude locally, to local dealers in Iraq and Syria, who themselves later exchange it for refined or further smuggle it to regional countries such as Jordan, Iran, Turkey and the Kurdistan regions of Iraq.\n\nISIS also have some small refinement setups and can use it for themselves\n\nWhile it may seem unbelievable that Kurdish tanks may be operating on refined fuel that was originally smuggled from through dealers from ISIS themselves, it's worth remembering that the whole region quite lawless in that respect. \n\nThink of ISIS like the Mafia. They run their operations much in the same way. Extortion, racketeering, ransoms, theft and the selling of natural resources. \n\nThey have accountants, planners, engineers, keep financial records - they are \"running\" the areas they control much like the Taliban ran Afghanistan in the nineties. \n\nI am not so much a fan of CNN but it's fairly well covered here\n_URL_0_\n\n",
"Its because Isis is secretly supported by the countries that pretend to be fighting it in a half assed fashion. Including air strikes that don't seem to be working. \n",
"A key thing is that oil is pretty much the definition of a \"fungible\" commodity. Oil is oil is oil, grade aside. If it makes it to market (others have spoken about the mechanical details of how might be happening) then it gets lost in the general market, where one barrel is as good as any other.\n\nNow I have an image stuck in my head of some dandified connoisseur broaching a barrel with a little silver cup, swirling it and pronouncing \"Ah yes, the 2013 Kirkuk. An amusing little blend, good earthy notes with just a hint of sarin gas in the finish. Inferior to a robust Tikriti, but perhaps passable in the right conditions...\"\n",
"Hey former HESS employ here. I used to work with the trading department at HESS, I heard some great story's about phone-calls from people trying to sell illegal oil mostly from Nigiria. Of course we had to say no because like WTF. We believe that a lot of it go's to china, and Russa were it's easy to bribe logel officials. \n\nA fundamental rule of the market is that you can't stop oil one way or another. It gets into the market, so banning oil exports to or from one country doesn't usually have much of an effect.",
"I am just glad your whole post wasn't deleted by some stupid mod because your question wasn't good enough or something.\n\nVery interesting question and great answers - best I've seen on reddit."
]
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[],
[
"https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mPEfArQU7tc"
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[],
[],
[],
[],
[],
[],
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"http://www.cnn.com/2014/10/06/world/meast/isis-funding/"
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"http://online.wsj.com/articles/islamic-state-funds-push-into-syria-and-iraq-with-labyrinthine-oil-smuggling-operation-1410826325",
"http://i.imgur.com/LwmVGTl.jpg"
],
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"http://www.washingtonpost.com/business/economy/islamic-state-fighters-are-drawing-on-oil-assets-for-funding-and-fuel/2014/09/15/a2927d02-39bd-11e4-8601-97ba88884ffd_story.html"
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[],
[],
[],
[],
[
"http://publicradioeast.org/post/become-oil-barons-isis-has-sold-neighbors-and-enemies"
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"http://www.lulu.com/shop/2lt-scott-bennett-11th-psychological-operations-battalion/shell-game-a-military-whistleblowing-report-to-the-us-congress-exposing-the-betrayal-and-cover-up-by-the-us-government-of-the-union-bank-of-switzerland-terrorist-threat-finance-connection-to-booz-allen-hamilton-and-us-central-command/paperback/product-21851800.html",
"https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Jo8Xm46s62I"
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[],
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[],
[],
[],
[],
[
"http://unequalmeasures.com/2014/10/10/weak-point-isis-may-oil/"
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[],
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"http://www.chathamhouse.org/publications/papers/view/194254"
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[],
[],
[
"http://online.wsj.com/articles/tiny-ghana-oil-platforms-big-output-sparks-scrutiny-1408669517"
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[],
[
"http://www.voltairenet.org/article185495.html"
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[
"http://edition.cnn.com/2014/08/18/business/al-khatteeb-isis-oil-iraq/"
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2q15g3 | why are insurance companies and other major businesses able to get away with shady practices? | I'm having constant issues lately with health insurances. From what I've researched it's seemingly common practice to push around the consumer until they give up. Something is supposed to be covered by my plan, but insurance companies make it impossible to actually get it covered. Every CSR you talk to gives you a different reason as to why it's not going through, they will never seemingly flat out deny, or take blame, just tell you that there is an error made by someone else that needs to be fixed and make you run around.
Another completely unrelated shady business are car dealerships. I've heard and experienced so many horror stories. I've seen a car dealership forge my mother's signature for those bullshit 'cleaning' packages. I've heard/seen this one a few times, customer trades in car, gets new car, drives it home while contract is drawn up in a few days. Two days later or so they are told bank wouldn't approve the agreed upon financing, and offer a contract with new terms with a higher monthly payment. At this point the consumer can't get back old car and is basically forced into worse rate.
I don't think it's as a result of these corporations being so big, I saw an ama the other day about someone who worked for smaller health insurance company basically screwing people over. Why are they not reprimanded for these practices? | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/2q15g3/eli5_why_are_insurance_companies_and_other_major/ | {
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"Two parts, mostly. One, it is very hard to prove that a company is doing something fraudulent. Nobody is combing through every scrap of paperwork at a giant company looking for misdeeds, it's just not practical. Instead, particularly bad offenders are singled out and the government tries to make an example of them.\n\nThe other reason is that the law is very very convoluted. Often times the vague wording of laws allows companies to get away with things that are obviously unethical, simply because they are not EXPLICITLY forbidden.\n\nThis is a complicated issue, and there are many more contributing factors, but if more people raised a stink instead of just taking the easy way out and giving up the companies wouldn't do what they do."
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37zcsv | why aren't 1 and 0 assigned letters of the alphabet on a telephone? | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/37zcsv/eli5_why_arent_1_and_0_assigned_letters_of_the/ | {
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"Because they have or had special significance for the telephone system. Zero was used to dial the operator, and 1 was the long-distance call code. You couldn't use them at the beginning of a dial sequence as pressing 0 would ring the operator and 1 would cause it to be a long-distance number.\n\n"
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21s52r | how do i work out the valency of a chemical formula? | For example, Mg3Al2(SiO4)3
And I want to work out the valency of manganese in this particular formula. | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/21s52r/eli5_how_do_i_work_out_the_valency_of_a_chemical/ | {
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"Before we get started, that's Magnesium, rather than Manganese, which would be Mn.\n\nOkay, so the first thing to notice is that in this particular formula, there are several sub-parts - the Mg3Al2 part and the SiO4 parts. These are two ions which are stuck together by electrostatic attraction, and they are neutral together, which means that the + parts and the - parts have the same total charge.\n\nThe SiO4^4- aka silicate ion has (obviously) a 4- total charge, which gives you a negative total of -12.\n\nThis means that our Mg3Al2 part must sum up to -12. Now, with this example, it's fairly easy - Aluminium is very commonly in a +3 oxidation state, and Magnesium is almost always +2. If we multiply by each of the numbers of ions contained, we can see that we get 3x2+2x3 which conveniently = +12. Hence, the overall charge is 0. "
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2blt34 | why do i need noise cancellation headphones, when i can use any decent headphones and turn on the volume to avoid outside noise? | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/2blt34/eli5why_do_i_need_noise_cancellation_headphones/ | {
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"Noise cancellation do what they say, cancel outside noise. So, you don't need to raise your volume so much that it could damage your ears.\n\nLook up: Ear damage from earphones."
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2abi9t | why fast food outlets like mcdonalds and subway have to display nutritional information but my local burger/sandwhich place doesn't. | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/2abi9t/eli5_why_fast_food_outlets_like_mcdonalds_and/ | {
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"The law requiring calorie counts to be posted states that it only applies to restaurants with at least 20 locations. Other laws related to nutrition have their own conditions that apply specifically to chain restaurants. As a result, any restaurant that just operates in a single location is not affected by some of these regulations. ",
"This was a part of the ACA/Obamacare. It only applies to restaurants with 20 locations or more.\n\nThis had to be done in the laws to prevent undue hardship on small family-owned restaurants with just one location.\n\nOtherwise it wouldn't have made it through Congress.",
"I figured it was because of corporate attention. McDonalds is known by pretty much everyone, which means more people can see if they don't display that info and complain. Your local store is only seen by the local customers, so any issues with the lack of nutritional info are handled differently. Probably it'd become a \"if you don't like it, don't eat here\" situation."
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1aq2e7 | why some games absolutely hate being alt+tabbed out (tf2, civ v, skyrim, etc.) while other games don't seem to be bothered by it (wow, diablo 3, dishonored, etc.) | Sub-question: Why do you think the windowed fullscreen mode, as in WoW, isn't embraced by other games?
edit: Thanks for the explanations, everyone! Been wondering this forever. | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/1aq2e7/eli5_why_some_games_absolutely_hate_being/ | {
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" A lot of games that run while fullscreened essentially \"take up\" the top priority for a job and the rest of the system sits quietly (this is what Source engine games do). Other games that run fullscreened aren't running \"fullscreen\" per se, but windowed and borderless, so it looks full screen but it's still running alongside everything else.\n\nEDIT: Horrendous wording on my part wording. Should have said they're running \"like\" the windowed and borderless modes on Source games. Usually, games like TF2 and CS:S take up a full core or, if you have multi core enabled, two to themselves and your GPU and put your OS and other tasks on the backburner. They'll take up the highest task priority aside from some system programs. When you alt+tab out of them, you have to essentially put the whole game on the backburner and devote your limited RAM to whatever other OS functions are going on and load it all in again. Seriously, go try playing a Source game in borderless windowed mode, and note your CPU usage graphs from the task manager and compare them to Source games in fullscreen. Then compare other games that don't have alt tab issues fullscreen vs windowed borderless CPU usage graphs. The difference is marginal and the option mainly exists in case you have problems with your mouse leaving the window (like is the case with Mount And Blade: Warband's windowed mode)",
"I've been able to Alt-Tab out of the \"Hated games\" you mentioned without any issues. I think it just varies with each person's system. Hell I've been able to run Skyrim windowed with Netflix streaming in Chrome next to it without any issues (no I wasn't watching; it was for my daughter.) ",
"If you can force the games into a maximised window, you should get rid of any 'tab' problems. As others have said, some of the problems with using Alt-Tab may well be system based.",
"[Here's a way](_URL_0_) to get most Source games to run borderless, solving the alt tab problems.",
" > When running in full screen mode, most of the time the game has exclusive rights to the video card and all its resources (most importantly, video memory). As soon as you alt-tab to another application, that's lost so when you come back the game is never sure what assets are still valid and what have been overwritten by other programs. \n > In the olden days of Direct3D this was 'Context Lost' event and the game would have to know everything that was in memory and reload it into DirectX assets (Textures, Models, shaders) which would load them back into video memory.\n[Source](_URL_0_)\n\nGames that handle this context lost event well keep a list of all loaded objects in video memory and restore this when they have focus again. Games that don't handle this haven't properly loaded everything back into memory.\nDX10 apparently solves a lot of these issues for developers.\n\nApologies for not actually explaining it like you're five!",
"Some games, when they are run, capture all of your screen in their frame. This is a good thing because then your computer doesn't have to worry about what's going on in the background and waste graphical power on that, but the flip side is that if you want to switch out of the frame your computer has to do a ton of work to change what it shows you.\n\nAs a note, if you are playing source games, you can set the options to -windowed -noborder to get this effect for a pretty minimal loss of performance",
"You might notice that when a game is running at a different resolution than your desktop your computer will take a minute to switch between the two. To mitigate this problem try matching your in game resolution to your desktop resolution, or vice versa.",
"Just try alt-tabbing out of Everquest pre-2001...",
"Biggest reason loads of people don't realize: Your desktop resolution and in-game resolution differ! Seriously, I had this problem with so many games and using the same resolution in-game and elsewhere fixed it. WoW is especially slow as a mofo if the resolutions don't match.",
"Whatever else you might think about Star Trek Online, they do it right in this regard. They actually give you a minimize button.",
"OP hasn't played FFXI. Without a third party mod, it will always crash if you alt-tab from full screen. They added a windowed mode much much later, but full screen still crashes when you alt-tab.",
"Tabbing out of WoW used to foul up stuff good for me, bugging the game (this was several years ago, early Wrath). I got in the habit of playing in windowed mode, and I still do.",
"Weird, as a rule Civ V has always been pretty kind to me when it gets alt+tabbed. ",
"I've noticed if you continue alt-tabbing you can get skyrim to continue working",
"I worked on a game about 4 years ago for PC and alt-tab was the devil to us. Long-story short: some processes don't handle being \"out of focus\" for very long. Unless you're architecting a system that can survive in a low-memory environment, it's going to get quaky, ESPECIALLY if your packet depot (whose job is to send and receive network packets) goes to sleep when it's out of focus. \n\n",
"I alt tab out of Civ V all the time. but good question for the others. ",
"It's because the company that released the game chose not to make it work; they might have been short on time, money, or talent. It's a question of priorities - sometimes (or more cynically, 'often times') developing a fun gameplay mechanic or designing beautiful graphics is more important to them than releasing a stable game.",
"related question hopefully someone can help with--\n\nI have dual screens and run CS:GO in borderless window mode. my game is on the right monitor, second screen to its left. if I'm flicking my mouse to the left, the pointer will poke out of csgo on to the second screen; if hit any if the buttons on my mouse while the pointer's flickering on the second screen, the game loses focus.\n\nsuuuuper frustrating. can anybody halp me do something that doesn't involve disabling my secondary screen?!",
"Hey, just feel like I should mention this. Skyrim does *not* bug out when you alt+tab. When you click to go back in, just Ctrl+Alt+Del, hit esc, and then click back on Skyrim.",
"Okay, so you know how your main screen is called a \"desktop\"? Let's go with that.\n\nImagine Timmy has a real desk, and he likes to build model planes and model ships on it. Timmy also has to do his homework sometimes. \n\nTimmy is neat and meticulous. When he starts on a new model plane kit, he lays out all the parts, puts little dividers into the box that the kit came in, and sorts all the parts into the dividers. Then, when his mom comes in and tells him to stop playing with his models and do some homework, he just puts all the bits into the appropriate divider sections, closes the box, and carefully sets the model on top of the box. When he comes back to the model, the glue has dried and everything is where he put it.\n\nBilly also likes to make model airplanes. He's not nearly as neat as Timmy, though. When his mom tells him to do his homework, he just throws all the parts back into the box, throws the plane into the box, shoves the box off his desk and starts doing his homework. He feels like this saves him a lot of time, and he's right - Timmy takes almost thirty seconds to clean his desk, while Billy only takes about five seconds. But later, when Billy comes back to his airplane, he finds that the wings bent funny and glued in a weird position, and the landing gear and the decal sheet are glued to the cockpit.\n\nSome Windows games are like Timmy - they go through this whole process of saving their current rendering state, then gracefully deallocating memory so that when you swap back to them, they look fine. This takes a bit of effort and a bit of extra coding, so some games are like Billy and don't bother - and when you swap in and out, they freak out and mangle the display."
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4l027d | why time theoretically stops at the speed of light | Also, do objects travelling at the speed of light simply perceive other things around it as not moving? Or does time literally pass slower for these objects? | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/4l027d/eli5why_time_theoretically_stops_at_the_speed_of/ | {
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"I don't know that it's accurate to say \"time stops.\" There is no perspective of time for an object moving at the speed of light. If you do the math we have now, you wind up with an equation that is undefined at c. ",
"The explaination I know has to do with the consistency of the speed of light. If two observers measure the speed of light, both will get the same values, no matter how fast they are moving relative to another. \nImagine a spaceship travelling at near the speed of lieght. Their experiment to measure c would be a laser beam that is pointed at a mirror (in flight direction) and a device that stops the time that the beam needs to get to the mirror and back. \nBecause the spaceship is travelling so fast, it would take more time for the beam to come back to the measurement device. It would measure different values for c when the spaceship is travelling at different speeds. But light is travelling at a constant speed.\nHowever, when the time slows down with the increase of velocity, c is a the same constant in every system.\nWhen travelling at the speed of light, you can not expect any values, because the light can't get back to the point where it came from, making measurements impossible.",
"what you need to understand is that \"time\" and \"space\" are not separate things. They exist in one 4 dimensional space called \"spacetime\"\n\nin spacetime, everything is always moving at \"the speed of light\" through the 4 dimensional space. Usually, this is almost fully expressed in the \"time\" dimension.\n\nAs your speed increases as movement through the 3 \"space\" dimensions, your speed in the \"time\" dimension must decrease, since the vector sum of all 4 dimensions must always be a vector with speed \"c\". In other words: the faster you move through space, the slower you move through time.\n\nIf you move at the speed of light, this means your movement in through spacetime lies fully in the 3 space dimensions. The vector length in the \"time\" dimension is 0. Thus, if you travel at the speed of light through space, time stands still for you.",
"Imagine an old analog clock ticking forward, measuring time.\n\nNow get in a ship and fly away from that clock at the speed of light. \n\nIf you and the light leaving the clock's hand are moving at the same speed, the movement of the clock would appear to freeze.\n\nMove faster than the speed of light and the hands would appear to tick backwards."
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3qqih2 | if there is a laser razor, then aren't we not that far off from laser hand held weaponry? | If human hair has the same strength as copper, and something the size of a safety razor is able to cut through it, then aren't we pretty close to having lazer guns that can damage people?
_URL_0_ | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/3qqih2/eli5_if_there_is_a_laser_razor_then_arent_we_not/ | {
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"Lasers have a number of problems with battlefield application. For instance, there tends to be less dust and debris or other problems like fog and rain between your face and your razor (unless I guess you're a really adventurous shaver). These can provide difficulties for a beam of light that a regular old bullet can ignore with quite a bit more enthusiasm. As well, other things like mirrors present a risk for a laser operating team that a bullet operating team (especially a bullet operating team with mirrors) can scoff at. No mirror is going to reflect perfectly, so a good enough laser could destroy them ultimately, but... well, so does a gun. \n\nYou've not just got to make a laser gun that damages people. You've got to make one that does a better job of it than a gun. ",
"That thing is pretty obviously a hoax. If you watch their videos, you can clearly see the super-heated wire used for actual shaving. Also, the practical explanation they give for the thing makes absolutely no sense.\n\nAlso, all the engineers in their videos have full beards. ",
"There are several problems with that - you'd need a lot of power (big heavy expensive batteries), energy will dissipate as heat and you'd have to get rid of this too and inflicted damage wlil be relatively small - but it's doable.\n\nHowever, as long as you intend to go beside burning enemy's retina, it wlil be really expensive and ineffective. Think of sword heavily decorated with gems. Expensive and not convenient.",
"The U.S. Military DOES have prototypes for laser weapons, but they take up entire rooms and take several minutes to set up and fire something with a trivial amount of firepower. The technology is still too primitive for practical combat usage.",
"There is not a laser razor. That Kickstarter was removed because the group failed to provide a working prototype. ",
"Laser weapons at the moment tend to be good at destroying missiles. Lasers are great at heating up part of the missile and destroying, say, the part in charge of navigation or targeting or even the fuel-tank.",
"Even when we do have combat-ready laser weapons, we will still be a long way off from hand-held laser weapons. There is simply no energy storage method currently that could be miniaturized to that degree and still remain instantly lethal."
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1r7lsp | how does a director have any impact on the story itself, since he doesn't write the screenplay? | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/1r7lsp/eli5_how_does_a_director_have_any_impact_on_the/ | {
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"The writer writes the dialogues, scene setting and some actions. The director directs the actors how the actors are to deliver the dialogues, where they're to stand on the scene, where they're to look and the expressions they're to have, where they're to move in the scene and how they're going to interact with the other characters and the environment around them. As a lot of human conversation is based not just on dialogue but also on body language and emotional cues, its the job of the director to making all these non verbal aspects of human interaction believable, interesting, appropriate for the situation and powerful. \n\nAlso how much the director actually does depends on the director. Some directors only care about the actors and how they're to move, behave and say their dialogues. Then the set director chooses and designs the environment and director of photography (or cinematographer) looks over how the scene is to be framed and focused. Other directors are a lot more involved in the set direction and cinematography too. Stantley Kubrick is a good example of a director with a strong photography background who was also very much involved in not just what the actors are doing but also how each shot was to be framed and focused and how the sets were designed. Many of the big/famous directors are a lot more involved in all the different aspects of the film from set design to photography so they dictate lot more of the overall look of the film than simply it's content. \n\nWhen the direction of the film is bad the actors appear wooden. Like they're simply reading their lines of a script instead of appearing to be having an actual emotional conversation or that the body language and movements of the actor just don't correlate with the dialogue and the actor appear emotionless or just odd. Watch The Room or Birdemic for some really really bad direction. \n\nWhen a film is directed well everything binds together. You feel connected to the characters. Every character appears that they're a real person who exist in the real world and not just an actor reading their lines. There is proper pacing in the story where you don't feel the film is getting bogged down in boring conversations or scenes where nothing happens or things are happening so fast that you don't understand what's happening. And the whole story itself is interesting. ",
"These other two comments do a pretty solid job of explaining the logistics in all of it, so I'm going to leave that be. But I figured I might as well chime in with the best example I can think of, just so you can get a simple and clear idea.\n\nImagine the movie *Jaws*. All of the tension and build up comes from this sense of the 'unknown'. We don't know what's lurking in the water; we don't know if it's a shark or something else, or maybe nothing at all. That's because we never really see it--the camera just bobs in and out of the water, essentially creating the effect that *we're* in the water. Which is scary, because like I said, that would mean we're in the water and we have no way of knowing what's in there with us.\n\nNow, imagine if the director, Steven Spielberg, had filmed it the way it was originally intended. The shark was supposed to be the **STAR**. We were supposed to see the shark all the time, and watch him swim around. (The mechanical shark actually broke in the salt water, which is why they made the decision to not show it quite as much, but that's not the point.)\n\nBasically, what I'm trying to say is that yes, the writer did the writing. But a movie where we watch the shark is a VERY different story than the *Jaws* we know.\n\n**TL;DR-** If we saw the shark in *Jaws* more, the movie would have been tacky and campy."
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5j7uzf | why do states have different regulations for "open" vs "concealed" carry? | Which restrictions are usually more strict - restrictions for open or concealed? Why are the restrictions and regulations different? | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/5j7uzf/eli5why_do_states_have_different_regulations_for/ | {
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"Many generations ago, open carry was culturally seen as less threatening (people considered those who carried arms openly as not posing a threat, and those who carried arms secretly as up to nefarious purposes). In that era, laws and regulations were passed that favored open carry of arms. Think of most westerns where almost everyone has a gun in their hip holster, but the bad guy usually has a few concealed weapons. \n\nDuring the 1960s when activists realized that open display of arms could be used as a political weapon, the cultural view flipped, with open carry getting more of a stigma, and concealed carry being favored in the newer regulations. \n\nHowever, the law is very slow, so in many states the law has all sorts of half passed and half rescinded changes that result in a hodge podge of favorable and unfavorable restrictions for both that vary from state to state. \n\nThe general trend in most states for the last decade or two has been to broadly reduce restrictions on carry, with more of a focus on reducing them for concealed carry rather than open carry. "
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6hn0w3 | why, after so many years of living near and around plants, does hay fever still exist | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/6hn0w3/eli5_why_after_so_many_years_of_living_near_and/ | {
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"Hay fever, particularly mild hay fever, doesn't have a substantial impact on the survival or odds of procreation for over the whole of the human population. \n\nAdditionally, the prevalence and severity of allergies is dependent on many factors, some of which (like more severe allergies developing in people who grow up in clean, largely animal free environments) didn't exist for the overwhelming majority of human history. \n\nNatural selection doesn't care much about inconvenience or even pain, it cares about sex and death. "
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2p74v9 | why are metal slivers so much more painful than wood slivers? | I work in construction and get both frequently but the metal ones are always much more painful. Even a tiny metal sliver hurts more than a larger wood one. | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/2p74v9/eli5_why_are_metal_slivers_so_much_more_painful/ | {
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"Moist wood is somewhat flexible. It also isn't really very sharp. Metal is inflexible and can be made to be and stay very sharp."
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8pyf1a | batteries have two poles, negative and positive. they can be explained by being a pole with excessive electrons and another one lacking electrons. but what about magnets? we have the north and the south pole? what are them? excess of something, lack of something? what? | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/8pyf1a/eli5_batteries_have_two_poles_negative_and/ | {
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"Though the poles of a battery are sort of able to be explained by one having more electrons than the other (this is a better analogy for capacitors than it is for batteries), the poles are actually defined by the behavior of the electric field generated. \n\nCharged particles produce an electric field, which we represent with “field lines.” For an electron, field lines point towards the particle, and away for protons. When you have an object with two poles, one positive and one negative, it’s called a dipole. If you look at the field lines for an electric dipole, they radiate from the positive end and loop around to the negative end. This is very similar (actually looks identical) to the field lines for a magnetic dipole. \n\nMagnetic fields are just like electric fields, save for one important fact: there are (as far as we know) no magnetic charges (monopoles). This means there’s no “north charge” and “south charge.” Magnetic “charges” always come in pairs.\n\nSo to your question, magnetic fields don’t come from a collection of things bunching up like electric fields. Magnetic fields are the result of electric currents (or changing electric fields, but that’s a bit more complex). For example, a wire conducting current will create a magnetic field that wraps around the wire in concentric circles. \n\nI hope this helps!",
"Changes in the “electric field” are due to the intrinsic property of “charge” (positive/negative) whereas changes in the “magnetic field” are due to the intrinsic property of “particle spin” (up/down)\n\nNote: particle spin does not mean that the particles are actually spinning. A more accurate name for this property is “angular momentum” "
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636sex | why humans come down with minor illnesses all the time but when a pet gets sick it's typically a more serious problem. | [deleted] | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/636sex/eli5_why_humans_come_down_with_minor_illnesses/ | {
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"Typically one of the key ways that you tell a human has a minor ailment is they complain about it. Generally it is only serious medical conditions where you can walk into a room and instantly identify that a person is sick by sight alone. (source: EMT, and I walk into a lot of rooms with sick people in, and it nearly always requires questions to identify sometimes ailment). \n\nAnimals can't complain about it if they have the sniffles, or indigestion, or even more serious condition like diverticulitis or rheumatic pain, or sciatica. You might notice a change in personality, you might not, but when they have kidney failure, or a twisted bowel, you will definitely see a significant behavioural change. ",
"I'm not sure the premise of your question is accurate. Pets get 'bugs' and minor ailments just like humans do.",
"It happens all the time, actually. Since I was a kid I've had around a dozen cats. They'll stay in bed even more, move more slowly, throw up and sneeze. ",
"I'd argue this is just response bias. If your pet came down with a 'minor illness,' how would you know? You only realize they're sick when they're really sick. ",
"Its not that they don't. Its more that you don't notice it as much since they can't relay to you that they're sick. You notice when they are really really sick but it is a lot harder to tell when they have the cold for example",
"Unless they are really sick they usually won't show signs besides maybe sleeping more or being a bit lethargic. In general animals try not to show weakness as that is a sure fire way to be preyed upon. ",
"Pets do get minor illnesses all the time. You just never find out about it because animals hide their sicknesses so that predators don't notice them and single them out as weak. And yes, they do actually sneeze, vomit, and other stuff."
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2zpywr | is it possible to improve your memory to a point where you can memorise a full page of numbers?how? | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/2zpywr/eli5is_it_possible_to_improve_your_memory_to_a/ | {
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"It's possible to memorize that page using various mnemonic devices such as turning them into a song, or a story, or by breaking them into manageable chunks.\n\nBut it's not like your \"memory is improving\". You're just using a trick to convert the information into a form that your memory can handle."
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3r59ww | why do health inspectors give warnings to restaurants before inspections? wouldn't it make more sense to surprise restaurant owners? | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/3r59ww/eli5_why_do_health_inspectors_give_warnings_to/ | {
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"I don't think they need to warn the restaurants. When they inspect, they typically will give them a certain amount of time in which they need to fix violations before returning. "
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4ffl7i | why does the same logic not apply to music and other "pirating?" | _URL_0_
The Google Books case just got put to rest, why does this reasoning not apply to all copyright infringement cases? | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/4ffl7i/eli5_why_does_the_same_logic_not_apply_to_music/ | {
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"The key difference is that Google isn't publishing copies of the books that they scan. If they were letting anyone download the full books, that would almost certainly lead to a different court decision.\n\nGoogle is sharing small samples of the books when they're relevant to search results, just like they do with websites and news articles.",
"Fair use. Basically it's OK to use copyrighted works in certain ways that aren't considered a violation of copyright. Google books is undertaking a massive archival process, which is generally viewed as adding value to the original works. Also, Google books only allows you to view small snippets of a book (2-3 pages, i think) at a time. The key point here is if Google books is acting as a \"replacement\" for the original works or is causing them \"irreparable harm\" by somehow driving customers away from paying for the books on the service. \n\nBasically the courts weigh the alleged infringement against the 4 factors test:\n\n the purpose and character of your use.\n the nature of the copyrighted work.\n the amount and substantiality of the portion taken, and.\n the effect of the use upon the potential market.\n\nIf your work is for an approved purpose (review, archiving, searchability, etc) you are good. If you're only using small portions, you're good. If it is unlikely that someone is going to view your \"use\" and then not have a reason to pay for the original, you're good. \n\nIt's important to note that you don't need to hit all 4 points, and can even fail a couple and still have your use considered fair if the other points weight heavily enough in your favor. This is why if you upload a 3 minute scene of a movie to youtube it will get taken down, but if you upload the same scene and provide sufficient commentary on it, you'll be ok (as long as the company that owns it plays by the rules which is an iffy proposition.)\n\nTL;DR Google books is \"fair use\" because it hasn't been shown to adversely affect book sales, and if it has, it's been doing it for good enough reasons."
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9qfam5 | how to calculate how many valence electrons there are in a element/atom | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/9qfam5/eli5_how_to_calculate_how_many_valence_electrons/ | {
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"Valence electrons are defined as the electrons important for chemical bonding, not necessarily the number of electrons in certain orbitals. Periods 4, 5 and 6 have the typical families (alkali, alkaline, etc...) and the transition metals. The typical families have the typical number of valence electrons: alkali=1, alkaline=2, ..., noble=8. The transition metals though have a lot of electrons in orbitals that are easy to break free from the nucleus. Depending on what the metal is interacting with, the number of important electrons can change. The easiest way to think of this is that a given transition metal can have a variable number of valence electrons depending on the type of reaction. (Remember \"valence electrons\" are those that are important to chemical bonding.) So it's not easy to define that number. Transition metals usually have at least 3 valence electrons, no matter the reaction. For some transition metals in some reactions, the number can be as high as 12.",
"If you have a full periodic table you can still count valence electrons left to right in each period (just insert the side groups in between). \n\nIn any case, s- and p-electrons (main group numbers) dominate chemical behaviour which is why side group metals act so similar - they only differ in the number of d- and f-electrons. \n\nBesides that, orbitals only hold 2 electrons each (with opposite spin)- but there are 1 s, 3 p, 5 d and 7 f orbitals per 'shell', with higher order orbitals only available with increasing 'shell-numbers': Shell 1 contains only a s-orbital, shell 2 contains s- and p-orbitals, shell 3 s-,p- and d-orbitals and so on. Due energetic differences d- and f-orbitals only contain electrons one(two) shell(s) later than expected which is why there is a 'two period step' between the main groups and side groups and lanthanides/actinides. All of this can be derived from electron quantum numbers defining the electron state which explains very well the layout of the periodic table - might go a little far though.",
"What you have been told is a simple explanation of what is going on and holds true for the first 20 atoms and for almost all chemical bonds. But a shell can have more then 8 electrons. We have currently identified elements with 32 electrons in a single shell but you can assume no elements have more then 8 atoms in its outer shell. So elements 21 Scandium and 30 Zink have two electrons in its outer shell. However they have different number of electrons in their 3rd shell. The number of electrons in each shell tend to form as a triangle with 2, 8, 18, 32 electrons and then in reverse order back down. However unlike the 20 first elements the rest of the periodic table is full of exceptions to this simple rule so it is harder to teach."
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2lrc4n | what causes comment threads in eli5 to be deleted or locked? | I have been looking through old posts and I keep seeing deleted comments with replies or whole comment threads deleted or locked posts. I've read the rules but it seems random in the actual threads | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/2lrc4n/eli5_what_causes_comment_threads_in_eli5_to_be/ | {
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"We delete comments that violate the rules. So rude comments directed at other redditors, or top level comments that are irrelevant to the question (jokes, etc), and that sort of thing. Threads get locked mostly because they have been adequately answered already but are attracting large numbers of comments that break those rules, and moderating them is more trouble than it is actually worth. "
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18y8mc | is it really possible to hear the difference between an uncompressed .wav and 320kbit .mp3? | I cant really figure out, what all that is about.
where exactly are the big "problems" of mp3 encoding, even if using a high bitrate? | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/18y8mc/eli5_is_it_really_possible_to_hear_the_difference/ | {
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"Many people think or like to think that they can, but they will fail in blind tests. The same kind of people who will praise cheap wine if they're seeing it poured from an expensive wine's bottle.\n\nA computer can tell the difference of course because it can mathematically discern the difference. MP3 also cuts off extra high frequencies. Ones that we can't hear anyway, mind you.",
"Well *some* people claim they can tell the difference. Though I'm not so sure I believe them.\n\nIsn't the important question whether *you* can tell the difference? If so, [give it a try](_URL_0_) using the blind test.",
"Compression is achieved by crushing parts of a file that humans don't normally hear so well. Most people don't hear above 16kHz and that goes down with age. You can safely compress everything from about 12kHz and up, as well as roll off everything above about 20kHz (considered the threshold of human hearing). Same thing is done on the low end. \n\nConsidering most music is heard on cheap earbuds through devices that are not capable of accurately reproducing extreme high or low frequencies, there's no point in having them (although audio enthusiasts will argue differently). \n\nYou specifically asked about 320kbps mp3s, which are pretty dang close to wavs. Almost pointless to keep that level of mp3 instead of a wav if you have the storage. Remember that media players aren't just playing back music, they're decoding the compression as they go. When you have a large file decoding, you might notice your player having trouble uncompressing as it plays (might might might might.... might). \n\nOn the subject of wav files, they're ideal for music and film production because they store frequency ranges (with the right data rate) that are far outside of human hearing. That's not particularly useful for the end listener, but considering how much processing occurs during the production process, you lose a lot of data along the way. If you start with the bare minimum, you won't have any room to lose. \n\n**TL;DR**: It depends on your hearing levels and the quality of gear you reproduce it on. Probably not, but it is a measurable difference. ",
"I don't really know anything about what makes the encoding different that someone hasn't already said here, but I can occasionally tell the difference in some songs depending on how they're mixed.\n\nBeing a drummer, I tend to listen primarily to drums and in some cymbal-heavy songs, higher-pitched cymbals in lower-bitrate encoded songs tend to sound a little bit buzzy, for lack of a better term.\n\nLike /u/freakame mentioned below, it's because the compression is built to crunch parts of the audio that humans don't hear well, such as extreme highs and lows. Since cymbals (especially higher ones like crashes) are catching a lot of that range, I can sometimes catch that it doesn't sound quite natural.",
"Yes. Not to sound like a snooty audiophile, but with some tracks, I can definitely hear a difference. I'm 34, with some midrange hearing loss (though my high frequency hearing is still intact). \n\nThe track can't be anything that's been hit with too much dynamic range compression in the studio. Most of the differences I hear between a WAV and an MP3 is a slight loss in dynamic range. Transients lose a little of their impact. The WAV just sounds... bigger. \n\nThat said, I don't keep all my audio in FLAC or WAV, but in ~225kbps MP3s. Is there a difference? Yes, but I only ever hear it with A/B comparisons. It really is good enough, even with good headphones. \n"
]
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20ictq | how is veto power fair? | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/20ictq/eli5_how_is_veto_power_fair/ | {
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"If you mean in the US government, it ensures (in theory) that no one branch of the government is all-powerful. It's part of the system of checks and balances.",
"It's one of the powers of being a chief executive, either of a state or the nation as a whole. It's a privilege of being the boss!\n\nBut - as with most things - there are checks to this power. In the US, vetoes are never airtight - there's always an ability to prevent a veto. In most cases, this means a certain percentage of votes (ex. 75%.) So if a legislature voted and passed a bill overwhelmingly, and then sent it to the President's desk, he or she couldn't veto it if the bill passed with a certain margin. So the President or governor would know that he or she would need to sign the bill in that case...but it's very unlikely that any executive leader would be forced to sign something he or she didn't want to. \n\nTL;DR it's one of the powers of being an executive leader, but can be circumvented. The veto power is not absolute. ",
"The Veto in the UN is a very powerful tool. Unfortunately, it results in resolutions being stuck in transition if it affects one of the 5 countries with veto rights. In light of Russia using their veto against the resolution of Crimea, one can tell that it isn't fair. Russia and any of the P5 are pretty much immune to international law, which is not helping matters in Crimea, in Syria and will not help things in the future."
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3r6ov9 | why is it that when a bottle of coke is shaken the bottle might explode because of the gas built up ? it's not like the co2 isn't there before it was shaken. | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/3r6ov9/eli5_why_is_it_that_when_a_bottle_of_coke_is/ | {
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"Actually, that's exactly what it's like. The CO2 is bound up in carbonic acid inside the drink itself, and isn't in gaseous form. Shaking it actually produces CO2. So you're right - the gas actually _isn't_ there before it's shaken. "
]
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||
2wzmux | investment bankers on wall street are known for working insanely hard (100+ hour weeks). what exactly are they doing that requires them to work so long? | I basically understand what investment bankers do, but I don't get where 100+ hours per week of work comes from. | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/2wzmux/eli5_investment_bankers_on_wall_street_are_known/ | {
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"Trading is a very time-critical activity. Global markets never shut down completely. Every second that you are not on the job can mean a missed opportunity. Good opportunities are rare and it's hard to predict when they arise. That leads some traders to chase big wins, almost like gambling addicts.\n\nAlso, some Wall-Street companies have highly competitive, cut-throat work cultures, where the poorest performers get culled regularly.",
"The job has a ton of reading, writing, and talking at the most basic level. The lowest level jobs are usually analysts who are paid to be experts on all the major companies in an industry. They usually read several hundred pages of [corporate reports](_URL_0_), read all the external news about the industry, write 5-10 page summaries, and talk to clients about their conclusions for a few hours a day.\n\nAbove them are junior bankers who read hundreds of pages of reports, legal filings, and create strategies and options for clients (who've shifted from large investors to corporate management). They'll prepare pesentations outlining strategies for mergers, selling stock for the first time, and bond placements. "
]
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[],
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"http://www.sec.gov/Archives/edgar/data/320193/000119312514383437/d783162d10k.htm"
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2q0oo6 | why does curling up into the fetal position help stomach/period cramps? | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/2q0oo6/eli5_why_does_curling_up_into_the_fetal_position/ | {
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"I believe it minimize the use of those muscles and allows them to relax, therefore hurt less. ",
"Not sure why it is that way for some people. \nI've actually found that laying on my side isn't the best sleeping position when I'm having menstrual pains. I prefer to lay on my back with a pillow under my knees, and a heating pad on my stomach.\n\nI found that tip in a Women's Health mag article about sleeping positions for different ailments, and it's worked for me so far!\n\n_URL_0_\n\n",
"It relaxes all the abdominal muscles and makes it so the stomach isn't stretched out as much. "
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1snfft | chemistry bonds | Explain the differences between a covalent bond and an ionic bond. Please, I really don't understand it. | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/1snfft/eli5_chemistry_bonds/ | {
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"In a covalent bond, the electrons are being shared by the the atoms. In an ionic bond, one atom had completely taken done electrons from the other. In this case, bbot atoms become oppisitely ccharged, and the electrical aattraction between their charges keeps them together.",
"Now how does polarity play a role in the bonds?",
"Thank you so much"
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1stbwf | how a rubik's cube can be solved using a set pattern each and every time. | I know that Rubik's cubes have certain patterns of moves you can use to solve them, but how is this possible with the billions of possible configurations of a Rubik's cube? How does one set pattern or a couple of patterns work for every possible combination?
Thanks! :D | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/1stbwf/eli5_how_a_rubiks_cube_can_be_solved_using_a_set/ | {
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"They aren't. What professional solvers have are set patterns to 'fix' particular parts of the cube, and then they fix the cube piece by piece.",
"You're refering to solving a Rubik's Cube with [Macro-operators.](_URL_0_) Macro-operators are sequences of moves that will always move part of the cube into the desired position without messing up the positions of any other parts of the cube. This allows you to split up the problem of solving the Rubik's Cube into a set of several 'sub-problems', for example:\n\n1. Solve the top cross\n2. Solve the top corners\n3. Solve the middle layer\n\nand so on. Each sub-problem has it's own macro-operators for solving it. Because macro-operators don't mess up other parts of the cube, you can solve the sub-problems 1 by 1 and end up with a solved cube."
]
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3ec5yh | why did the greece government all the sudden vote for austerity measures? didn't the people vote no? does their vote not count? how does this work? | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/3ec5yh/eli5why_did_the_greece_government_all_the_sudden/ | {
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"The referendum in Greece to which Greek voters voted \"no\" was a symbolic gesture that Alexis Tsipras (the prime minister) thought would give him leverage in negotiations with creditors. To be blunt, it did not. Greece ultimately needs the bailout money and the EU more than they need to avoid austerity. It is rumored that EU leaders told Tsipras that Greece would go it alone, geopolitically, if it chose to abandon the Euro and that the EU would not rush to their aid if, say, Turkey were to grow belligerent. \n\nInstead of leading his country immediately into a painful collapse of the economy and financial system and an uncertain future, Tsipras and some of his colleagues chose to back down. Opposition parties in the Greek parliament are supporting the agreement while about half of the Syriza coalition is rebelling. It's very likely that there will be new elections once things have calmed down more.",
"So, here is the situation.\n\nGreece owed money to private investors. To save the Euro's reputation, Germany took over that debt in a hostile takeover, buying it out during the 08 crash and assuming responsibility.\n\nNegotiations had been ongoing. Greece voted 'no' to a specific package of Austerity suggested on a specific day. Because of that, that exact package can't be used.\n\nSo, Germany gave Greece a choice. They said \"Alright, you can leave Europe, print drachma or declare bankruptcy or whatever you need to, and come back later when things are sorted out\" or 'You can agree to this package of Austerity that's different enough from the last one that the referendum doesn't apply to it'. The new package being substantially worse.\n\nGreece was supposed to leave Europe. Everyone thought that Tsipras had a plan to do so and that all of this was about posturing surrounding the leave. Merkel gave him an ultimatum that would have made it easy for them to leave Europe politically, and in 5-10 years to come back. \n\nBut apparently Tsipras was only bluffing, and expected Germany to relent after the referendum. He didn't understand that the Germans were overwhelmingly against a better deal. Maybe he got greedy after realizing that it's better to be the head of an Austerity state than a poor country. \n\nMoving forward, France and Germany are discussing greater centralization to prevent another Greek-like crisis, with stricter borrowing limits set into EU policy and a representative EU parliament capable of voting on EU-wide economic policy to make it more representative. The details are still hard to decide. France and Germany have always vied for control over Europe - the EU was meant to be a way for them to share power and integrate. Germany leads a block of countries that want to keep Europe highly autonomous but with debt controls and more limited immigration, and France leads a block of southern European states that are flooding with refugees and need greater integration and support to cope, including an EU-wide representative parliament with the power to legislate and levy taxes to spend money on EU-wide issues such as the refugee crisis.\n\nIt remains to be seen how that will play out, but for now, Greece's choices are to either impeach Tsipras, leave Europe, and sort their mess out, or to deal with the only Austerity package that wasn't invalidated by the referendum and hope that the IMF's struggle to force Germany to postpone their debt repayments for 40 years goes through."
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5ribp8 | why is the kkk still allowed to exist? | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/5ribp8/eli5_why_is_the_kkk_still_allowed_to_exist/ | {
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"Freedom of speech prevents the government from discriminating against people who hold different - even objectionable - beliefs. Threats are where the line is drawn. People are free to hate other people as long as they do not threaten.",
"There's danger in limiting free speech. Yes, the KKK is pretty much universally reprehensible. But how do you word a law as to draw the line on free speech without giving the government the ability to decide for itself what is and is not acceptable speech? What if Donald Trump decided that any speech criticizing him was not acceptable?\n\nRight now your right to free speech ends when you incite violence. The KKK isn't telling people they should go out and kill black people anymore, so while their message is racist, it has not elevated to the point of being illegal.",
"Because we decided that we would prefer having an evil organization like the KKK rather than letting the government decide what speech is acceptable or unacceptable.\n\nIf you let the government decide to prohibit people who say \"evil\" things, what other organizations do you think they would declare to be \"evil?\" Abortion providers? Gun-control advocates? Anti-war protestors?\n\nOur newest President tells blatant lies and then throws a tantrum when people point out the fact that he is lying. What do you think he would do if he had the power to determine what people can and cannot say?"
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4jylr9 | why do companies still put the "as seen on tv" log on their merchandise? doesn't the logo represent "cheap" in american culture? | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/4jylr9/eli5_why_do_companies_still_put_the_as_seen_on_tv/ | {
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"Not to that product's target demographic. That demographic thinks, \"Hey, that is that awesome vegetable peeler I saw on TV! It worked great; I should buy it!\"",
"There's an as seen on TV store in my mall. It's always packed. Never been in there though. ",
"In a word: Yes, the \"As Seen On TV!\" logo often *does* represent a low-quality purchase.\n\nStrangely enough, though, it doesn't matter.\n\nThere's an interesting [psychological effect](_URL_1_) that marketers tend to use to their advantage. When presented with an array of similar options for products or services, humans will almost always choose the ones with which they are most familiar. This is true regardless of whether a potential customer consciously assesses quality or not, and it can even override past negative experiences. Catchy slogans, jingles, recognizable characters, and attention-grabbing designs are all used to capitalize on this phenomenon, with the end result being better sales.\n\nWhen a company includes that \"As Seen On TV!\" logo on their product's packaging, they aren't making a statement about quality. What they're really doing is saying \"Hey, you know about this!\" It evokes that feeling of familiarity, which gives the item a significant advantage over others of a similar nature. In fact, [most advertising](_URL_0_) is meticulously designed to make consumers aware of things they can buy. Many commercials go the extra mile and make their subjects seem appealing in some way (particularly in the case of food advertisements), but that recognition factor is one of the most important goals.\n\nIn other words: Reminding someone that they've already seen a product on television - regardless of what they thought about it - goes a long way toward making a sale.\n\n**TL;DR: Familiarity breeds consumerism.**"
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||
4mpf60 | why is menthol "cold"? | Edit: This blew up a lot more than I thought it would.
To clarify, I'm specifically asking because the shaving soap that I used today is heavily mentholated, to the point that when I shave with it my eyes get wet.
_URL_0_ This soap, specifically. It's great. You should buy some.
It's *cold*™ | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/4mpf60/eli5_why_is_menthol_cold/ | {
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"The people saying it's because of evaporative cooling are wrong. Menthol's boiling point is 212 Celsius, much warmer than your body. \n\nMenthol isn't really cold, it just tricks your body into thinking it is. There's a type of nerve cell that responds to things like temperature, pressure, pH, etc. Some of these cells have what's called a TRPM8 receptor on their surface. When menthol comes into contact with a TRPM8 receptor it binds to it, which makes the affected cell open an ion channel that admits sodium and calcium ions into the cell. This in turn causes the nerve cell to send a signal to the brain that the brain interprets as coldness. A similar receptor, TRPV1, is why the capsaicin in hot peppers feels 'hot'.\n\nBasically, menthol binds to a receptor on certain temperature-sensitive nerve cells, causing them to fire, and your brain interprets this nervous activity as coldness.\n\nEDIT: Okay, evaporative cooling probably does have something to do with it, and it isn't necessary for a substance to reach it's boiling point to evaporate. However, I'm willing to bet that the cooling sensation is caused overwhelmingly by TRPV8 activation.\n\nEDIT: JESUS CHRIST YES VAPOR PRESSURE I GET IT",
"If you combine menthol and capsaicin in water (so the pure forms of the molecule), is it possible to get to an exact ratio where the coldness feels the same as the hotness?\n\nWill your skin feel like it's both freezing and burning or will it feel normal?",
"It's the same as capsaicin being hot just cold. It triggers a nervous system response that makes you feel cold when it's not the case",
"I hope this isn't a stupid question, but could someone explain whether it is actually possible to get a cold from using menthol-heavy shampoo? I and several family members have somehow developed colds right after some serious shivering (in the dead of summer) caused by this awful, awful torture-shampoo. \n\nBasically, is it possible that these chemicals can mimic your brain's perception of cold so accurately, they actually suppress your immune system like *really* being in a cold environment does, causing dormant bugs to flourish? Does your body just switch on the *full* response to coldness?",
"Easier ELI5:\n\nEverything is an illusion. Your brain only senses reality through the nerves.\n\nLike a pain killer, menthol binds to your temperature sensors to send information to your brain that is interpreted as a feeling of cold. In a similar way that a pain killer binds to your pain sensors to block the signal of pain.",
"your tongue and skin has little blobs of protein on it called receptors. when the temperature changes, these change shape and send a signal to your brain. some receptors detect high temperatures. these bind to capsaicin to tell your brain its hot. some receptors detect low temperatures. menthol can bind to them and make them trick your brain into thinking its cold"
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bexzt6 | where do our eyes focus when sleeping? | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/bexzt6/eli5_where_do_our_eyes_focus_when_sleeping/ | {
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"Your eye focus is determined by the activity of the [ciliary muscle](_URL_0_). When it contracts, this warps your lens and makes it longer than it is wide, and you can see things up close. When it relaxes, the lens warps and becomes thinner, and you can see things at a distance. \n\nJust like all the other muscles in your body, the ciliary muscle is relaxed when you are asleep. So to answer your question, they focus for \"distance\" vision. \n\nAs for the 20/20/20 rule, that doesn't have to do with focus. Eye strain from using computers and reading isn't that your eyes need to change their focus to stop being stiff or whatever, it's that when you're focused on a computer or a book or anything else up close you stop blinking. When you look away for a while, you remember to blink. That's why it helps."
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3je7cw | why don't laptops use simcards? | As the title says.
In most major cities, the mobile data net is fast enough to handle data transmissions - hell, where I live, my phone (with wifi off) is faster than my own 100/50mbps network.
Why don't laptops come with a place to put a simcard, just like a phone? | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/3je7cw/eli5_why_dont_laptops_use_simcards/ | {
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"Because you just have to buy [one of these](_URL_0_) or [one of these](_URL_1_). So, on the manufacturing aspect, they don't have to add a port and the functionality for no reason.",
"The simcard doesn't work by itself, it requires a *cellular radio chip* and an antenna. These add significant cost to the product. Since most laptop users don't want it, it's not worth building in.\n\nA good option instead is to use your mobile phone, either as a mobile hotspot or (using less power) tethered to your USB port.",
"In addition to what the other users have said: some laptops (especially those geared towards business use) do ship with cellular cards built in, which you are then able to pop a sim card in to and use for mobile Internet. If I remember correctly, Lenovo's Thinkpad line is one example of a brand that comes with a cell card option. At least it used to be: I have a Thinkpad at home that has a slot for a cell card, but I've never had need to add one. "
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"http://mb.cision.com/Public/MigratedWpy/85065/699656/9a780df5c46cf19e_org.jpg",
"http://www.verizonwireless.com/internet-devices/ellipsis-jetpack-mhs800l/"
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56c18d | why do we drive on a side of the car? wouldn't it make more sense to drive from the center? | Title. | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/56c18d/eli5_why_do_we_drive_on_a_side_of_the_car_wouldnt/ | {
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"Early cars did this. It wasn't until later that it was shifted to the side.\n\nUltimately it was moved to the side, with early inconsistency. The logic was probably greatly influenced by increased passenger comfort/space, but was argued as either aiding you in avoiding oncoming traffic, or aiding you in not falling into the ditches that were always to the side of roads. Needless to say, the \"oncoming traffic\" concern prevailed.",
"You need to get out of the car at some point so sitting in the center would be awkward. Also it might make it hard to determine the exact position of the side passing oncoming cars, so there is a good reason. Also you need to fit another person in there so... You going to split them in two?",
"Driving on the side allows you to see oncoming traffic easier when attempting to pass another vehicle."
]
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22alrw | why don't civilian police stop truckers? | All I ever see is troopers stopping them or sheriffs | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/22alrw/eli5_why_dont_civilian_police_stop_truckers/ | {
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"I'm not sure what you mean by \"civilian police\". If you mean *city* police, they do, if truckers break traffic laws. That's pretty uncommon though.",
"City police can pull over any drivers on highways, they just usually leave that part of patrolling to state troopers in most areas.",
"DOT enforcement is usually on our case. ",
"I'm Californian so my answer may be different than the reality in your state: \n\nIn California, local police officers can pull over any vehicle that is breaking the law. Truckers, however, are rarely pulled over by local police for two reasons: 1) Truckers usually are on the highways which local police rarely get onto because the Highway Patrol controls it. 2) Truckers have complex laws regarding tickets and the likes which is why the CHP has it's own division that deals with them, local police usually don't want to get involved. \n\nIf a trucker is clearly breaking the law and being a danger to the public, the local police can and will pull them over. All police officers (sheriff, highway patrolman, cops) are equal in California - they can all pull over and arrest criminals wherever the strike in the state of California. "
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28rvql | the possibility of a world war 3 | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/28rvql/eli5_the_possibility_of_a_world_war_3/ | {
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"Somewhat likely. Russia is pissing everyone off with their Ukraine crap, but mutually assured destruction will certainly keep everyone from firing nuclear arms. The closest the world has been to nuclear war was the Cuban missile crisis of the 1960s in the Cold War.",
"It's doubtful that a war between super powers would happen. Mainly because of the sheer destruction super power countries are capable of. Way too much damage would be inflicted by each side to make it worth it. Nuclear weapons really have changed the world more than people realize. The risk of entire cities being leveled out-weighs any kind of benefit that could be had by engaging in war. Countries like China, Russia and the US have a vested interest in each other financially too. It would be a lose-lose for any country involved. ",
"I think at this point highly unlikely the world is too highly connected and dependent on each other + of course there's the everyone has nukes aspect. It's like at this point that sort of war would have no upside for anyone involved\n",
"Unlikely, in that it would take something catastrophically awful to kick it off. Like, Russia invades Alaska or Iran nukes Jerusalem and rallies other Muslim nations against the West. \n\nWW1 and WW2 were both piles of kindling waiting for a spark to ignite them. Plus, you had various treaties and pacts that lead to \"An attack against X is an attack against Y also\". \n\nNow, the world is so connected that there isn't two major \"sides\" anywhere. Every superpower more or less depends on all the others to a degree. It would take a nation truly go rogue to start something on a global scale."
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7qw5l8 | how can freezing have a "burning" effect? | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/7qw5l8/eli5_how_can_freezing_have_a_burning_effect/ | {
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"From a feeling point of view, they both set off nerves and can be intense enough to not be able to tell the difference. \n\nFrom a damage point of view they both damage cells and can cause similar looking injuries even though the cause is different. \n\nUnder a microscope burnt and frozen cells look different but at the scale the human eye can see, a patch if destroyed cells can look the same as an entirely different patch of destroyed cells. ",
"Burning and freezing both kill cells by making them a temperature they can't handle. They also kill cells in about the same shape, because temperature changes spread from cell to cell.\n\nSo while the method of killing each cell is different, the outcome is similar. Cells are dead where you burn or freeze them."
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1f0xj0 | how autotune works | I understand that the frequency of a sound wave determines its pitch.
Let's say we have three notes, of 1 second each, and each of different pitches. I understand that if a computer could determine where one note ends and another one starts (which isn't too difficult to do), it could easily speed up the sound wave for each note, repeating it to make sure it still lasts the required amount of time. So if we want to go up by an octave, the frequency doubles, and we'll need to repeat the sound wave twice.
But "real" sounds and voices aren't like that. They're constantly changing their frequency and shape. You can't just speed up a sound wave and repeat it twice - the words would be doubled in speed and repeated!
How is it possible to change the pitch of such a complicated wave shape, while still keeping the shape intact so that they words can still be clearly heard and not sped up? I'm guessing there must be some complicated maths required to do that... or is there a really simple way to do it that I'm missing?
Thank you! | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/1f0xj0/eli5_how_autotune_works/ | {
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"Well this is really hard to explain like you're five years old because of the advanced nature of the science and technology involved.\n\nI should first say that I don't really KNOW this for sure, I'm not as familiar with the technology but I do work in sound design so I still have a little background and knowledge and this is what I'm basing my post on.\n\nEvery sound has a given frequency, whether it's a sine wave or a more complex waveform like a voice. Imagine a person saying \"AAAAA...\" into a microphone. You can see a repeatable pattern in the waveform when it's presented digitally, on screen. How often this pattern occurs/repeats decides the *pitch* or *tone* of the sound, and the frequency is measured by looking at how often the pattern is repeated in one second (one cycle in one second = 1 Hertz).\n\nBecause there is such a repeatable pattern in a constant sound wave, the auto-tuner can approximate its frequency (and therefore its pitch) by looking at *what* is repeating (the wave cycle itself) and how often, and then corrects it to the nearest pitch frequency. I think if the tone is lower than the closest note, the \"missing\" wave cycles are synthesized, based on the input sound's wave shape, and then \"thrown into the mix\" to account for the time shift. If it's higher, then cycles are omitted.\n\nDue to how the technology works, short sounds like \"K\", \"P\" and similar percussive sounds are not auto-tuned because of a non-constant waveform (it evolves and changes over time); only constant sounds that could in theory go on forever (like a person who does not need to breathe, and has an infinite amount of air in his lungs, saying AAAAA...) are auto-tuned.\n\nAll pitches/tones has a set frequency, and in Western music it's always measured in 12th root factors starting at 440 Hz, which is a natural A (in the fourth octave). This \"table\" of known frequencies is used to shift sounds towards the closest pitch."
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3xiqnh | why don't the swiss speak a single language? | Why would three small regions that speak totally different languages unify like that? I get why they don't have their own language, but it's kind of weird that three areas that don't even speak the same language could feel connected enough culturally to become a single country. | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/3xiqnh/eli5_why_dont_the_swiss_speak_a_single_language/ | {
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"text": [
"They are remnants of the many, many independent states in that region of Europe in the middle ages, that were able to maintain their independence in the age of state-building because alpine warfare is no joke."
]
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[]
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97ovx6 | why can bodies last 8+ hours without peeing during the night, but that would be a huge challenge during the day? | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/97ovx6/eli5_why_can_bodies_last_8_hours_without_peeing/ | {
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"It's not a huge challange when you're busy. I don't know how exactly, but human body can tell when it's not the right time to go to the restroom. During work, for example, or during sleep.\n\nI have no urge to pee when I work 12 hour shifts, so it's possible when you're busy enough.",
"It is my understanding that when one is about to sleep, a hormone is released that limits urine production.\n\nAlso. You may want to discuss this frequent urination with your medical professional. It CAN be a sign of diabetes."
]
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lkzx2 | how does a quartz clock work? what the heck does a crystal have to do with keeping time? thanks in advance. | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/lkzx2/eli5_how_does_a_quartz_clock_work_what_the_heck/ | {
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"ELI5: Something really weird happens when you hook a piece of quartz up to a battery: it vibrates. If you know how fast it vibrates, you can use it to measure time. \n[ELI12](_URL_0_)",
"[Here you go](_URL_0_)",
"The Engineer Guy is a great guy and engineer.",
"A quartz watch works by hooking up a battery to a tiny piece of quartz in the shape of a fork. Doing this makes the quartz jump around because it's getting shocked by the battery.\n\nThe cool part is that the quartz moves around a very precise amount, so the only thing the circuits in the watch have to do is count how many times the quartz moves back and forth. If the quartz has moved back and forth 30,000 times then one second has gone by.",
"ELI5: Something really weird happens when you hook a piece of quartz up to a battery: it vibrates. If you know how fast it vibrates, you can use it to measure time. \n[ELI12](_URL_0_)",
"[Here you go](_URL_0_)",
"The Engineer Guy is a great guy and engineer.",
"A quartz watch works by hooking up a battery to a tiny piece of quartz in the shape of a fork. Doing this makes the quartz jump around because it's getting shocked by the battery.\n\nThe cool part is that the quartz moves around a very precise amount, so the only thing the circuits in the watch have to do is count how many times the quartz moves back and forth. If the quartz has moved back and forth 30,000 times then one second has gone by."
]
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fxowk7 | when, where and why did the no-vax movement appear? | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/fxowk7/eli5_when_where_and_why_did_the_novax_movement/ | {
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"In 1998 a British Doctor, Andrew Wakefield, published a medical paper linking the MMR vaccine to Autism.\nHe did so because he wanted to make money selling the individual vaccines.\nThis was eventually found out and all the \"research\" he did was discredited but unfortunately it was out there and so the information spread and people became hostile to vaccines.\n\nHe's been completely revoked as a doctor but that doesn't stop him using the title when he attends events in the US where he speaks at anti vaccination talks and so on."
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37bzvm | what is an analog computer (like the antikythera mechanism), and how does it work? | I read an article this morning on the Antikythera mechanism and I pretty much didn't understand a word of it. How did they make a "computer" in Ancient Greece? What is an "analog" computer anyway? What are they capable of doing? | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/37bzvm/eli5_what_is_an_analog_computer_like_the/ | {
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"Analog computers perform some (usually specialised) mathematical operations using wheels, cogs, levers, or slides.\n\nSome examples, in addition to the antikythera:\n[The Slide Rule](_URL_2_), used for finding approximations for certain mathematical operations;\n\n[The Curta Calculator](_URL_1_), capable of performing addition, subtraction, multiplication *and* certain types of division;\n\n[The Harmonic Analyser](_URL_0_), a mechanical computer that performs Fourier decomposition analysis on waveforms and can re-create waveforms from digital Fourier representations. (Every video this guy makes is superb, and worth watching).\n\nThose are some of the more general-purpose analog computers that have existed; some are incredibly specialised for their purposes (during WWII, for example, some bombers used specialised analog computers to calculate bomb drop timing.\n",
"Analog stuff works by having moving mechanical parts, rather than electronic wires, this restricts a lot their capacity, they get bulky and prone to break downs.\n\n They can perform basic math though, like the one that that french guy who made one to help his accounting father (sorry no link mobile)"
]
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"http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Slide_rule"
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wbu1g | my 10 year old nephew wants to know, where does sound go? does it just disappear? | Well, what happens to sound and does it continue traveling ? | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/wbu1g/my_10_year_old_nephew_wants_to_know_where_does/ | {
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"Sound results from vibrations in the air, similar to ripples in still water if you drop a pebble. Eventually the sound just runs out of energy and can't overcome the resistance of the air, so it peters out into nothing.",
"It eventually dissipates into the environment as a tiny amount of heat.",
"Let's do this in true five year old fashion.\n\nThe air around us is made up of molecules and particles. These molecules and particles aren't too unlike rubber balls. If I were to throw a rubber ball, the movement I gave it - the energy - would cause it to go flying towards whatever is in its path. Sometimes it's more rubber balls, and sometimes it's into the wall or the floor. Think of sound as someone throwing a rubber ball in this case.\n\nIf the rubber ball that I threw goes into more rubber balls, each one that it hits takes some of the energy in my ball and moves along its own path. But this leaves my ball with less energy since the other ball took some. Each time one ball hits another, they split the energy up until each rubber ball has almost no energy. This sometimes seems like the energy is disappearing, but it's still there in each ball.\n\nThe balls can sometimes hit the floor or walls as well. If the wall is solid, the ball will bounce off and keep most of its energy. Think of throwing the rubber ball against wood or cement. It bounces back to you pretty easily, right? Some other materials act more like a sponge and steal the energy from the ball. If you throw a rubber ball against a foam wall it doesn't bounce as far back. These walls steal more energy from the ball.\n\nThis is what happens with sound. When sound is made, it's like someone throws these rubber balls. Louder sounds are like they're throwing more balls very very hard. Quieter sounds are like they're throwing fewer balls and not very hard. This energy they make with the sound doesn't disappear, it just gets spread out until we can't hear it anymore through the air and through the walls and floor.",
"Sound is energetic air movements. So, take for instance, your voice. When you speak, you use the energy within your body to push air out of your lungs, through your vibration vocal chords, and into the air. Now that it is in the air, that little sound you made has a lot of space to cover! So it spreads out in three dimensions away from your mouth-- Kind of like a balloon expanding. \n\nLet's take a minute to think about a balloon, as it paints a good (simple) mental picture for expanding sound waves. A balloon starts out as a semi-thick piece of rubber. Now you blow into it and it expands in every direction. Blow into it again and it expands more. But now, that thick rubber that we started out with it being stretched and becoming thinner! We're forcing the same amount of mass to occupy more space. This is why sound levels get weaker the farther you are from the source. What started as a tight ball of energy when it left your mouth has now ballooned to cover the space between its point of origin (you mouth) and the listeners ears. The amount of energy lost follows what is called the inverse square law. Which is a fancy way of saying that every time you double the distance between the sound source and the your ears, the sound pressure drops by half (for the sake of argument). \n\nNow what happens to the stuff that doesn't go in your ears? Why doesn't it go on forever? Couple of reasons. The first is that, if your outdoors, thanks to the inverse square law, the sound eventually gets soooo spead out that there is no more energy left to transmit the original sound. \n\nIf you're indoors, it's a little different. For the sake of analogy, you can think of sound kind of like a basket ball. What happens if you drop a ball from should height? It bounces a few times before coming to a stop, right? Now why doesn't it bounce forever? That's because each time the ball hits the ground, it loses some of its energy in the form of heat (which it gives to the ground), there is also resistance in the air that is constantly leeching energy from the ball's movement. Now this is the same thing of what happens in a room! Sound leaves your mouth, or a stereo, or whatever, collides with your wall, and looses some of its energy to the wall. Combine that with the inverse square law and you can see why things don't go on forever! They're always losing their initial energy to either the air, or obstacles in their way! Pretty neat! \n\n(My first Explain it like I'm five answer! Tried to actually imagine explaining it to a youngin', so a lot of stuff is left out, and some is fudged for the sake of example.)",
"imagine a gust of air hitting a piece of wood and bouncing back and the air slows down. thats basically what happens but slowly.",
"ELI5 style:\n\nFill a bathtub with a little water and make a small splash. The ripples are like sound waves. He'll see them bounce around and eventually disappear. This is what happens. The energy in the sound wave gets dissipated into heat, but I can't think of a good way to illustrate that.",
"Sound excites particles not actually moves them. Think of it as a pendulum that eventually slows down and stops. The longer it goes the weaker it gets. Therefor the sound energy just fades away.\n\nSo if you try yelling in space, you wouldn't be able to hear along with everyone else because there are no particles for sound to excite.",
"like ripples on a pond, they just spread out until they are no longer recognizable compared to the usual waves",
"This topic relates to the long misunderstood question. \"If a tree falls in the woods, and nothing is around to hear it, does it make a sound.\"\n\nShort answer - No.\n\nThe tree will make vibrations shoot everywhere around it, but sound only happens when those vibrations interact with an eardrum, and your brain interprets those vibrations as \"sound\". Similar to the double-slit experiment. ",
"Sound is a form of energy like heat and light, though it is very very weak in comparison. As a sound is produced, particles and molecules in the air are jostled around outwardly from the sound's source in all directions.\n\nDrop a rock in a pond and you'll see waves heading outwardly and subsequently diminishing. Sounds is not so different. When sound continues outwardly, it spreads, this causes it to get weaker for a number of reasons; \n1) some of the energy transforms into movement energy, such as when you yell loudly in a small space and feel the vibrations on the wall.\n2) when the sound waves move outwardly they spread widely, and the energy must also spread out, thereby growing weaker to cover more distance.\n3) The sound energy is absorbed by substances in the air or any softer materials in nature in the surrounding area, i.e. trees, or soft human materials like foam.",
"Sound isn't a 'thing', like a ball or a shoe; it's a kind of movement, like the circle your bike's wheel moves in when you pedal.\n\nIf you stop pedaling your bike, it'll coast for a little while, but eventually the wheel will stop turning. In the same way, if you stop making noise, the air will keep moving that way for a little while (much less than a second, unless it's a really loud sound that has the strength to travel a long way, so you probably won't notice it), but it'll eventually stop moving."
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brow6j | what is sensory overload? | ELI5 , Is it common? | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/brow6j/eli5_what_is_sensory_overload/ | {
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"Too much stuff for your senses to keep track of happening at once - a lot of stimulus can become disorienting.",
"My niece’s son has and from what I understand it occurs when one or more of the body's senses experiences over-stimulation from the environment. There are many environmental elements that affect an individual. Examples of these elements are urbanization, crowding, noise, mass media, technology, and the explosive growth of information.\n\nI think it’s actually on the autism spectrum and can be quite challenging to deal with."
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78lsjc | when you stop the flow of water at the end of the hose does it keep increasing in pressure or equal out? | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/78lsjc/eli5_when_you_stop_the_flow_of_water_at_the_end/ | {
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"If you stopped the flow of water but the pressure kept increasing, some failure point would eventually give and burst.\n\nGiven every time you shut off the water at a hose/sink/faucet there isn't some leak/burst, the pressure must hit a maximum and then equalize. ",
"If a hose is suddenly closed at one end, the pressure at the closed end will very quickly reach an equilibrium state: about the same pressure as elsewhere in the hose, give or take any effect of gravity. Once established, there is no more flow of water to cause further pressure changes from that.",
"You think the plumbing in your home forever keeps building pressure too? Why buy a pressure washer at all? Not trying to sound condescending, I think you need sleep bud. \n\nPressure is relatively constant. Blocking a hose is just like turning off the water valve. "
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391p83 | why do they put punch holes in the side of kraft mac & cheese boxes? | You have to rip the box open to get to the cheese packet regardless, and if you try to pour it without opening the box first the big ass packet just blocks the hole anyway. | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/391p83/eli5_why_do_they_put_punch_holes_in_the_side_of/ | {
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"Apperently a hole at the side is more convenient? or less likely to make all the pasta fall out of the box in case of an accident? :s",
"The hole isn't for a spout, it's so you can more easily open the box. \nInsert thumb, then rip open top of box. \n\n_URL_0_"
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4a9pp6 | why do some police units, like the "gang unit" i saw last night at a concert dress in casual clothes other than their vests? | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/4a9pp6/eli5_why_do_some_police_units_like_the_gang_unit/ | {
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"text": [
"Probably because they're undercover. Here in the UK that happens at concerts and shopping stores - they're more likely to catch people selling and using drugs if they aren't wearing a uniform."
]
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||
5w3gge | what does it mean when mathematicians "find" a big number, like graham's number? | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/5w3gge/eli5_what_does_it_mean_when_mathematicians_find_a/ | {
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"text": [
"It means they have proved that a particular number has some property.\n\nFor example, it's no secret that the following number exists...\n\n6353526374303929879127012501290127402919200192601923419028340912401927492180129801297012912012912261202912061\n\nWe don't need to go hunting for it. It's right there. However, is it prime? Is it a square? Is it a solution to < some famous equation > ?\n\nSome of these questions are hard or time consuming to answer. If I were to crunch a bunch of numbers and discover that the number above is prime, I could say that I \"found\" a prime number.",
"Suppose you left your diary on a table in Starbucks and you wanted to find how many people had read it before you realised. You might not be able to know the exact number (even though there is an exact solution) but you know it can't be more than, say, 100, as you weren't gone for long and the store isn't that popular. 100 probably isn't the actual solution but it's come about from the problem.\n\n\nThe same is true with 'finding' large numbers. For Graham's number, there was a problem in graph theory about how big a graph needed to be to have a certain property. We still don't know the exact answer, but it was proved that if the graph is at least as big as Graham's number it has the property (so Graham's number is an upper bound for the solution). It has since been shown that you can get away with using a much lower number instead, so Graham's number doesn't actually have that much use (only really in popularising mathematics). Other very large numbers come about in the same way, and usually they are quickly made redundant as mathematicians find much smaller upper bounds on the problem."
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mj3fm | the difference between art deco and art nouveau. | Ive always heard this two terms and I can't tell what's the difference between the two. | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/mj3fm/eli5_the_difference_between_art_deco_and_art/ | {
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"They're related, and fairly similar, as art movements of the early 20th century and to a certain extent the difference is more gradual than anything else, but on the whole art nouveau is more on the decorative, ornamental side of things, where as art deco worked with cleaner, more stylized forms. That being said, I tend to think there's a large gray area of things that could be classified as part of either style.",
"They're related, and fairly similar, as art movements of the early 20th century and to a certain extent the difference is more gradual than anything else, but on the whole art nouveau is more on the decorative, ornamental side of things, where as art deco worked with cleaner, more stylized forms. That being said, I tend to think there's a large gray area of things that could be classified as part of either style."
]
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5t8o24 | what happens to current debt during times of great inflation? | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/5t8o24/eli5_what_happens_to_current_debt_during_times_of/ | {
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"The value of that debt goes down.\nThat's why lenders factor inflation risk into their risk premium.",
"Suppose you took out a loan of $500 with the agreement that, one year later, you'd pay $1000. (obviously this is a terrible loan, just go with me) Over the course of that subsequent year, inflation was 10% (yikes!)\n\nYou still owe the $1000, but that money is only worth about $909 to the bank. That is unfortunate for the bank, but good for you. A low amount of steady inflation is generally considered a good thing for an economy, because it rewards the taking out of loans and spending of money today without making banks terrified to give out those loans. On the other hand, deflation (the opposite of inflation) is generally considered bad, because it makes people want to save their money rather than spend it.",
"You still owe a billion shekels in debt, but it become less valuable in terms of a stable currently like the dollar or the euro.\n\nCountries will often inflation devalue their currency as a way reduce a debt burden. That's part of the reason Greece was in so much trouble, being on the euro, this wasn't an option to them.\n\nThe prospect of debt being devalued is factored in to the terms of the debt. The bonds for most countries run pretty close to their inflation rates. If you are experiencing 15% inflation, do not expect to be able to borrow money at 5%."
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2p7ea1 | what are the steps taken to ensure that mold doesn't grow in a bathroom? | I understand some people may have mold growing in their bathrooms but I don't have any in my bathroom and I shower everyday which causes a lot of water vapor in the air. Why haven't I seen mold growing from all that vapor?? | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/2p7ea1/eli5_what_are_the_steps_taken_to_ensure_that_mold/ | {
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"It can depend a lot on your climate, and how often the bathroom is cleaned. If you clean it often, or had very good grout put in to start with, then that makes it harder for mould to grow.\n\nVentilation is also a factor, if you have an extractor fan or leave a skylight open a bit (we do where I live), then that gets the moisture out fairly fast, but if your shower is in a small room, that has very little airflow and has the door shut most of the time, then the increased amount of water vapour that gets trapped will make mould growth more likely."
]
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fpoe90 | why does microwaving continuously for sixty seconds heat food so much more effectively than two consecutive thirty-second cycles? | I noticed that my tea tends to be much hotter when I microwave it continuously than when I take it out half-way through. This result seems to be consistent regardless of material. Even if I open the microwave just for a quick second, whatever I’m microwaving needs significantly more time to heat. Why is this? | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/fpoe90/eli5_why_does_microwaving_continuously_for_sixty/ | {
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"Because if you're using thirty-second intervals, during the intervals heat escapes. If you keep it in for the full sixty seconds, no heat escapes. :) hope this helps\n\n & #x200B;\n\nAlso there's nothing wrong with microwaving tea imo",
"The heating element in your microwave takes up to ten seconds to get to full power, and you'll want to leave the door closed for a few seconds after it beeps to give the element time to cool down and stop sending radiation everywhere.\n\nAlso, microwaves typically have hot spots and cold spots, and if your drink doesn't stumble into a hot spot, while the heating element is hot, during its time in the box, it will be much colder because it absorbed less energy.",
"Microwaves work by agitating water molecules (heat after all is just agitated molecules). However, not all water molecules are agitated at the same time - as the waves don't blanket the entire inside the entire time. \n\nSo, think of your glass of water as bunch of swings. You are the microwave. As you push a seat it starts to swing, then you run to the next one and push it, then the next. But, as you get away from the first one, it starts to slow down a bit. Now, if you add in a short break at the end, that first swing will slow down even more. To add to this, imagine you can only push the swing a little bit each time - if you can get back to the first swing while it's still moving, your push will make it go faster each time you get to it. \n\nThe swings in this case are the water molecules - and by stopping the microwave, you're giving a chance for them to slow down a bit. \n\nPro-tip: Most microwaves have a \"Power Level\" button where you can set the microwave to 40% to 100%. This doesn't actually change how powerful the microwave is - it shuts the heating element off for 60% of the time to 0% (roughly). So, if you've ever tried to make nachos in the microwave and found it doesn't melt the cheese evenly - try setting it to 50% and doubling the time.",
"The magnetron inside your microwave that generates the microwaves is a vacuum tube, and the cathode inside it has to warm up before it starts emitting electrons. (literally warm up, as in temperature) \n\nYou will usually be able to hear a difference in the noise it makes a few seconds after you start it, this is when it's really starting to work.",
"Takes time to heat up, like everything else. Try making two bags of microwave popcorn right in a row. The second bag cooks like, 30 seconds faster than the first.",
"Because it takes like 4 seconds or so for a microwave to get fully going. So your 60 seconds is actually 56 seconds of heating and your 2-30 seconds is 52 seconds.",
"Think about it this way...\n\nWhy does driving in a straight line at top speed get me there faster than driving halfway, stopping, and going the rest of the way?\n\nThe microwave takes a bit to get up to full speed/power if you will that's why you see a difference.",
"The heating system in your microwave has to warm up and takes a few seconds to get to max heat, so microwaving continuously for 60 seconds would blast more radiation than two separate periods. \n\nThis is similar to how driving an old car at max speed for 60 seconds would go farther than in two 30-second drives, because the car will take some time to accelerate",
"Microwaved tea is an affront and abomination, please stop it immediately and invest in a kettle like Sheldon. Source am English"
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1s43xk | when i eat am i actually chewing as loud as it sounds like to me? | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/1s43xk/when_i_eat_am_i_actually_chewing_as_loud_as_it/ | {
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"No, when you chew, vibrations travel through your jaw bone and directly to your inner ear, where you hear them. On the other hand, the vibrations have to travel through air to get to someone else's ear.\n\nSound travels best in solids, followed by liquids, and worst in gasses. This is because molecules are closer together in denser materials which allows for better transference. "
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||
57e6j6 | how are the body's major structures genetically coded? | Currently in my first year of college biology, and genes were described as a string of nucleotides which codes for a specific protein. Do they do more than this? What genetic system controls how tall you are or why you have a femur? | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/57e6j6/eli5_how_are_the_bodys_major_structures/ | {
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"The simplistic way of looking at genetics is that one gene codes for one protein, but this is not always the case.\n\nThink of embryology (the development of an organism) like the feudal system--middles ages. You have kings which control lords, lords that control knights, knights that control soldiers, etc. (I'm probably butchering history.)\n\nI chose the middle ages because the components (knight, whatever) are sort of \"boss\" within their own dominion.\n\nThe king controls the country, the lord controls one small bit of that country, etc., but together, each hierarchical layer results in the overall structure and organization of the kingdom. Same with organisms.\n\nThe gross body plan (where do I form the head, the arms, the legs) is controlled by a group of transcription factors called [homeobox genes](_URL_0_). The expression of these genes outlines the \"kingdoms\" of the head, arms, legs, torso, etc.\n\nTranscrption factors, like kings, lords, and knoghts, are the \"boss.\" They tell other genes what to do by controlling when and where (spatially:from the very broad, head, arms, legs, to the very specific, rod photoreceptors of the retina) they turn on.\n\nBecause homeobox transcription factors are the king, the \"big boss,\" if you mess up their expression (tell them to turn on where or when they aren't supposed to) you get a mess. \n\nIn ants, scientists have turned on leg homeobox genes on where antenna were supposed to form and these ants get legs growing out of their head. Bad things.\n\nThese homeobox genes controll arms, legs, head, but get more specific or small too like retina in the eye, fingers. These genes map the body and controll the genes that make sure your femur forms in the right place. \n\nAs with the Middle Ages (perhaps I'm being unfair) footsoldiers are interchangeable/replaceable. The same footsoldier genes which make the bone of the eye socket and toes make the bone of the femur. It is the \"bosses,\" the homeobox \"kings\" and their underling lords/knights transcription factors which ensure that the femur is a femur and found in your leg and your phalanges (some toe bones) are toe bones and found in your toes.\n\nSo we just showed that gene expression isn't a binary: the how much, the where, and the when can be controlled by transcription factors. It turns out that particular traits (a phenotype) aren't always caused by a binary on/off of one gene like you may have learned is true of Gregor Mendel's pea plants in school.\n\nTraits can be the composite effect of many different genes.--and these genes' interactions with the environment. Height, skin color, intelligence are all examples of such traits.\n\nIf we simplify it, it makes sense that genes that control things like the density of bones (how much gravity pulls on them, whether they can support one's weight), connective tissue properties, nutrition (starvation--an environmental effect--in childhood stunts growth), as well as hormone changes and genes that more directly control bone length (human growth hormone is an obvious example) all work together to result in final height."
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9b0bi1 | how do relatively young people afford to live abroad for an entire year? | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/9b0bi1/eli5_how_do_relatively_young_people_afford_to/ | {
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"They do not pay for it themselves. In situations like you’ve described it’s generally 1) Mom and Dad, 2) academic scholarships, or 3) employer sponsorships.",
"Do you mean during uni? Loans and savings and planning and govt or organisational help (like funded scholarships or Erasmus). When you're still at uni there's lots of help available.\n\nAfter uni? Savings and planning mostly. It doesn't have to be that expensive if you are able to adapt and change your habits and expectations, and there are a thousand ways to travel and live abroad. It might indeed mean postponing building a career or quitting a job, but that's an individual choice. ",
"Most countries are much more affordable to live in than Canada and the US. So essentially, you need to have $10,000 in savings before traveling so you've got money for your plane tickets and a bit of a buffer, and then you work as you go to keep yourself funded, and come back when the money runs out.\n\nI know a lot of people from Australia who came to North America out of university, worked in tourism to make enough to live on, partied at night, and then went home to find a real job and start saving for retirement.\n\nSome people take out loans, some people have rich families, some people sell some of their stuff (car, etc.). Others work menial jobs for a year after school before they go.\n\nIt's also worth noting that student loans often don't require repayment until you're finished your schooling; so if you graduate locally and then go abroad for more \"schooling\", you are holding off loan repayments until you return.\n\nIn all cases, I'd say they're more interested in gaining experience than they are in worrying about savings.\n\nAnd the truth is, having work experience in foreign countries on your CV can go a long ways towards getting you hired in better paying jobs. So that trip can be a very good investment.",
"Most Countries are a lot cheaper to live in than the US or Canada (as in 10% or less)\nGet a job working a bar or something to do with English speaking tourists and you are set\n\nYou can’t live like a tourist, You live like a local person \n\nGo to a kibbutz in Israel and they feed you and give you a little spending money in exchange for work\n\nIt’s not hard if you don’t insist in maintaining the same lifestyle you have in Canada\n",
"I spent a year in Australia when I was younger. I worked to save up for the trip and then worked when I was there. I did house removals, building site labouring and fruit-picking.\nI also taught English in Taiwan for a couple of months.\nThere are lots of opportunities in lots of countries to teach English if you're a native speaker.\nMy first time living abroad was in Spain. I saved up £400 and figured if I didn't find a job I'd have enough for a 3-4 week holiday. I found work in a bar after a week and ended up staying for 4 months.\n"
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afle4j | how are some fish able to come back to life after being frozen, and how long can they be frozen for and still come back to life? | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/afle4j/eli5_how_are_some_fish_able_to_come_back_to_life/ | {
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"It depends on the type of congelation, for example, you can use a fast-frezzer to freeze a fish so the freezing it's only superficial and if you put the fish in water again you wait for a few minutes and voilá, the fish has \"revived\", in change, if you use a normal freezer the fish won't be able to revive cuz a lot of ice cristals have been formed in the interior of the fish and destroyed his vital organs."
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||
9fcys7 | what exactly is phage and what do they do? | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/9fcys7/eli5_what_exactly_is_phage_and_what_do_they_do/ | {
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"Phage is a Latin term that means \"to consume\". Bacteriophages for example are viruses which specialize in infecting bacteria (\"phage\" is typically short for bacteriophage). Such viruses are interesting as alternatives to antibiotics as viruses are usually extremely specific in the types of organisms they can infect meaning giving bacteriophage to someone with a bacterial infection can wipe it out without harming the patient or even other non-harmful bacteria such as in their gut.",
"Phages are viruses that attack bacteria. so it's like setting loose a cat in a barn full of mice, the phage is pest control and it doesn't infect big things, like us, only bacteria.",
"Kurtzgesagt have an [excellent video about them](_URL_0_), although others here have covered the basics. (Fair warning: if you're unfamiliar with Kurtzgesagt, be prepared to lose many hours.)"
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8ol7h6 | what makes shutting puppy mills down so hard even though they are repeat offenders? | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/8ol7h6/eli5_what_makes_shutting_puppy_mills_down_so_hard/ | {
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"NY Times recently [did an article](_URL_0_) on how rescue groups may inadvertently be fueling some of the fire by spending donation money on auctions for harder-to-find breeds, thereby pushing demand and prices up. It was an interesting perspective that I'd never even thought about and it may tie in to part of your question.",
"Running a puppy mill, by itself, isn't illegal in any state. \n\nMost counties have regulations that require dogs to be licensed or which restrict the amount of dogs that can be in any given area. But the penalty for violating those regulations is usually limited to a small fine. \n\nAdditionally, proving that those regulations are being violated is difficult. Under normal circumstances it requires that the neighbors call animal control out to the house *and* that the dogs are visible from the street. Its really only when one of the dogs actually bites someone else that animal control is able to take action because at that point they can seize the dogs.\n\nIn order to criminalize puppy mills, states would have to criminalize allowing dogs to breed, which isn't something that is practical or enforceable. The closest you can realistically do is what California did - which is to outlaw pet stores from selling \"commercially raised animals,\" but even that doesn't do much since most pet stores have already stopped doing so.",
"Because Missouri.\n\nMissouri has extremely lax puppy mill laws, and is one of the biggest suppliers in the country. Puppy mills make money and contribute to politicians who keep the laws loose.\n\nOther states can and have cracked down on puppy mills, but since they can't compete with Missouri in a state that has strict regulation, it just moves the business out of the state.\n\n",
"Because the puppies are considered livestock in that application and the laws are much less restrictive on livestock than domestic pets.",
"Having a puppy breeding business is not illegal. Only specific actions of negligence in dealing with the puppies and mothers are illegal. Simply being a breeder is not ground for the authorities to attempt to shut you down, there has to be evidence of you actually breaking the law. ",
"My county had an extremely hard time regulating known puppy mills in our area and ended up giving up. The puppy mills were clients of the company you register purebred puppies to. The company got their lawyers involved to fight the county because they would have lost a ton of money. It's sad but my small county gave up the fight.",
"Not in the US. \n\nI reported my uncle for puppy milling and animal abuse. So called authorities sent me around their branches because I live in a different town to my uncle. After that was sorted out they essentially told me they can't do anything because we have no laws and even the laws we have they aren't authorized to enforce. So I stopped supporting them and I've made it clear to everyone why. Doesn't seem to bother anyone that they campaign and market but when push comes to shove then they can't do anything. ",
"Can We PLEASE just add a tax on unspayed and unneutered animals? We make people get them rabies vaccines. Some towns require a license. How hard would it be at that license renewal to tack on a $50 tax if the dog is intact?! The money could go towards low cost spaying and neutering clinics! \"oh but then people would just not license their dogs!\" They're doing that anyway. Add the tax and some accountability. ",
"Perhaps I’m a bad person, and this is in relation to a cat that I bought, but three years ago I decided I was settled down enough and would be for the foreseeable future so I got a kitten.\n\nMy first avenue to procuring my now best friend Winston was to start calling all the shelters within about 15-20 miles of where I live in Los Angeles. Now it’s not like I live in some po-dunk country town where there is only one adoption agency. Since this was around September/October I was told by EVERY SINGLE rescue agency within reasonable driving range that it was not kitten season and that I should try back in six to eight months. Strike one.\n\nNext, I went to several local, reputable pet stores. I was told by them that my only two options for adopting one of their cats was I could adopt a full-grown 5 year old cat OR I had to adopt two kittens. There was no option to adopt just one single kitten. Now I understand that these poor cats that are older have very little options of being taken home by people, but as a single man with a studio apartment I felt it would be irresponsible to adopt two kittens who could potentially not get along immediately or eventually. Strike two.\n\nI started to mull over adopting one of the handful of older cats. I love cats, all of them. However, we all know that cats are a crap shoot and they’re either as loving and affectionate as the best puppies or they are complete assholes who obviously do not like humans, cats, dogs or anyone else for that matter. After scanning through a half dozen pet shops over the course of a week and a half to two weeks I did not find an adult cat who was adoptable that I get any connection to. Some were mean, some were indifferent and then a few even attacked me. It was clear that bringing one of these chaps home would turn my shitty studio apartment in Hollywood into a house of animosity. Strike three.\n\nThen I decided to look on Craigslist. Immediately I found someone in West Hollywood (3 miles away) with two kittens for sale for $150. I went and met these folks and they had a grey female kitten and a blonde male kitten. I mentally flipped a coin and decided to take the blonde kitten (blondes have more fun right?) I took him home and named him Winston, after John Winston Lennon, and he and I have been inseparable since. The point I am making is thus:\n\nTrying to adopt a kitten through the county or a pet shop was almost a month long process that yielded no preferable results. Buying the kitten from a potential “kitten mill” yielded immediate results and I got one of the most affectionate, loving cats I’ve ever met. That was over three years ago and Winston and I are inseparable. So o guess my point is that while potentially unethical, buying from puppy and kitten mills is a much easier and convenient way to bring a cat/dog into the fold of ones life. Also, the county and pet stores insisted that they come to my private home and do a thorough inspection of it. I understand where they’re coming from but my home is private and I didn’t like the idea of a stranger coming into my home to “judge” me. They also wanted to call my work for god knows what reason and obviously they wanted to do a background check. These are all understandable caveats, however these multiple hoops and privacy concerns are the reasons that puppy mills and kitten mills are so popular and hard to eradicate. Fortunately for Winston I’m a loving, responsible roommate and for all those folks knew I was planning to make kitten soup out of this guy. So I agree with all the things the adoption agency was doing. But as long as there are people who want a puppy/kitten to raise from a teeny little ball of fur to a large, flippant animal then people will go around the adoption agencies, SPCA and reputable pet stores. I hope this doesn’t elicit the wrath of Reddit. I assure you my little brother here is the happiest kitten/cat in all of Hollywood.\n\nHope that helps...",
" ill never get why this shit still goes on even being legal because ill never buy a dog myself and ive had dogs be apart of my family my whole life. Someones dog had puppies, i offer to take one off their hands, or ive had stray dogs find me so i let them stay. thats the way it should be",
"Frankly I don't understand why people don't get dogs from a shelter. There are plenty of them and so very grateful for their forever home."
]
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6p6n6r | how can reading about something induce the feeling of a physical sensation? | The same goes for watching things too. Like witnessing a man being hit in the genitals and then "feeling" pain and being uncomfortable. | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/6p6n6r/eli5_how_can_reading_about_something_induce_the/ | {
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"Humans have a unique ability to encode feeling into art. One condenses their emotion into a sound or color or series of symbols, and another individual decodes and experiences those feelings with their brain. \n\nIt's completely unique and an astonishing effect of our species' particular evolution. ",
"Google mirror neurons. When we see or image something, the same parts of our brain that actuall experiwnce those things become active. It's somewhat Similar to how dreams work. "
]
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[],
[]
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