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2tey9c | how did chopsticks get their name if they don't do any actual chopping? | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/2tey9c/eli5_how_did_chopsticks_get_their_name_if_they/ | {
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"I believe it has something to do with the saying chop chop, as in quickly.",
"\"Chop\" in pidgin English used to mean \"quick\". In Chinese their term translates to \"nimble one\", and so \"chopsticks\" means \"quick sticks\".",
"Man, that was fast. Thanks guys!"
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6x6z1m | why are trailer tractors so boxy and non-aerodynamic? | So, first of all, there's a shape difference between tractors in Europe and the ones in the US. EU ones are pretty much a flat surface slamming against the wind at 100+km/h. US tractors have a front mounted engine, which gives them a seemingly more aerodynamic shape. However, when brought together together in the same plane, the engine and the windshield have roughly about the same surface area, with both surfaces being mostly flat. I don't know if the US trucks are more aerodynamic or not, so some input on this would be nice, as well.
The overall question, however, remains: how come aerodynamics doesn't play a role in truck development? Considering the fuel costs, the large front surface area and the speed they cruise at, you'd think aerodynamics would be something truck manufacturers should be all over. | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/6x6z1m/eli5_why_are_trailer_tractors_so_boxy_and/ | {
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"EU tractors generally have their passenger cabins mounted on top of the engine instead of having the engine be in front of the cab. This makes the tractor look much boxier than American styles but it also makes them shorter. Being shorter is much more important in Europe because many cities have small roads with tight corners that aren't as common as in America.",
"Aerodynamics are very much a part of truck design. Here in Europe we already have a lot of haulage firms implementing aerodynamic trailers that look [like this](_URL_2_) though the flat boxy type are still the greater majority at the moment.\n\nWhen it comes to the actual cab and tractor (Herein referred to as the \"truck\") there is a slight difference in design concept between the US and Europe because of a number of factors.\n\nFirstly, US roads tend to be bigger and wider than European roads. Because of this, truck designs over here tend to be more compact than the traditional Peterbilt inspired design of US trucks. This saves weight, less weight means less fuel used against the downside of increased air resistance.\n\nAs you pointed out, traditional slab sided peterbilt style trucks do appear to be more aerodynamic initially, but ultimately they tend to have the same surface area meeting the windstream head on. For that reason they tend not to offer any great improvement in terms of aerodynamic performance and because they are heavier, tend to use more fuel.\n\nThat might be about to change though, thanks to [this design](_URL_1_), and [this concept one](_URL_0_).\n\nWhile the importance of aerodynamics has always been understood, previously making a truck aerodynamic often meant increasing its weight and size as it required additional materials. With newer materials like carbon fibre much of this extra weight can be minimised. The downside of course, is that fancy aerodynamic truck is probably going to cost a bit more.",
"A reson for the difference in max length.\nIn continental Europe the max length is 18.57 m, 40 ton and 24-25.25m, 60 ton in Scandinavia (the reason is that the extra length make it possible to have 3 instead of 2 cut to length stack of timber because the forest industry is important in Scandinavia). It is economical to have a cab over engine design to maximize the amount of cargo space\n\nI the US there are no federal max length but there are weight limitations of 36 ton so there is no incentive to make it compact the same way\n\nWith those limitation is it not strange that the designs are different. I is liley the case that increasing aerodynamics would reduce capacity and be non economic. \n\nA flat front is not that bad for aerodynamics. A flat back is worse \nLook at how [aircraft wheel covers looks like](_URL_0_[5]-1784-p.jpg). They are quite bulky at the front and pointier at the back. That design are that way for a reason\n",
"this is more about the trailers, but I have noticed many trucks in America will have one or both of these addons, I'm guessing for reducing drag... I'd love any insight on what the practical benefits are vs how long they take to pay for themselves \n\n_URL_0_\n\n_URL_1_",
"As much as it looks like things aren't aerodynamic these things tend to be heavily engineered towards being as fluid as possible while considering other handling characteristics. Many others have pointed out about the size restrictions so I'll leave that unsaid as other commnets seem to be more than enough for that. \n\nWhat I will say is take for example the Volvo FH16 truck. You look at it and you think it's very poor for aerodynamics but when you start looking into it you'll notice subtle things about it's design aimed at improving the CD (coefficient of drag) rating of the vehicle.\n\nTake a look at this image;\n\n_URL_0_\n\nLooks like a massive flat wall with a slight curve at the very edge of the cab doesn't it. Now look at the plan overview of the truck and what do you notice. \n\n_URL_1_\n\nI bet you should be able to see that there's a very slight curve to the entire front of the vehicle. The figures I've found is that most Cab over Engine trucks in Europe have C^D around 0.55-0.70, Most mainstream modern cars are around a value of 0.20-0.35. Now when you consider how much larger of a profile a truck has, then you soon can see that the figures are pretty impressive as an FH12 is from the figures I can find about 3 times the size of most cars in terms of cross sectional area (I've looked up a few common European models). \n\nIt's also worth adding that a lot of the parts on a truck (or other vehicle) are designed to be for aerodynamics not just in terms of the coefficient of drag but also to aid grip for the tyres, improve road holding and other performance metrics beyond being a fluid shape. Making a vehicle perfectly aerodynamic is possibly a great idea if you plan to use it in a straight line on perfectly dry roads with no wind or weather influences. For real world use you have to deal with pushing them into the road surface to press through rain to combat aquaplaning, to work against strong winds to prevent roll overs and many other things. ",
"I'm an aerospace engineering grad so can provide some insight into this. The default, most aerodynamic shape is a tear drop (fat end into the air). A lot of people think a knife edge is more aerodynamic because that's what they see on fighter jets. \n\nBut take a look at this fighter from 1945:\n\n_URL_0_\n\nIt has a rounded nose, just like a modern commercial airliner. Sharper noses only came in when people wanted to go super-sonic where aerodynamic rules get really different.\n\nAnyways. If a teardrop is the best shape, how far off that shape is the front end of a truck and how could we improve it? It turns out, when you start to consider the stuff you need in the front of the truck (and where it has to be places so that you are good with local highway axel loading rules), you just don't have much wiggle room. You could improve things a bit, but not that much.\n\nThe interesting thing is that the BIG aerodynamic savings are to be had at the back of the truck. That flat surface deviates significantly from the tapered end of a teardrop and creates all sorts of excess drag. The problem is, that;s where stuff gets loaded in and out of the truck, and a giant spike sticking out the back of a truck isn't a safe idea."
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2h7b89 | how can youtubers post videos of them singing popular songs without getting their videos taken down, but i can't upload a school video that has "eat it" (which was published in 1984)? | I thought that the copyright laws protected people from singing songs from within the last 20 years? In america, that is. | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/2h7b89/eli5how_can_youtubers_post_videos_of_them_singing/ | {
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" > I thought that the copyright laws protected people from singing songs from within the last 20 years?\n\nThat's patent law (which only applies to inventions, product designs and manufacturing processes).\n\nCopyright typically lasts for the entirety of the author's life plus an additional 50-75 years depending on what jurisdiction you live in.\n\nWhen people post themselves singing popular songs on Youtube and it's not taken down, it's usually because the use of that particular song is covered by blanket licensing arrangements Youtube has with record labels, music publishers, and performing rights agencies. \n\nMusic which they haven't licensed in this way and/or which the publisher has specifically asked Youtube to take down (e.g. through YT's content matching system) will be removed shortly after being uploaded."
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21n7ji | what really happens when country a's leader calls country b's leader, where the language isn't the same? | This sounds silly. When they say "Putin calls Obama to discuss Ukraine" what does that mean exactly?
1. Does Putin picks up the phone, makes a long distance call to Obama and they talk person to person?
2. What language do they speak?
3. Or is it something like Obama - > Translator - > phone < - Translator < - Putin | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/21n7ji/eli5_what_really_happens_when_country_as_leader/ | {
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"Both leaders have trusted translators who are also on the line. It's a big teleconference.\n\nEdit: It's actually an interpreter instead of a translator. I myself am a big stickler for using the correct term even if the vernacular might allow for others. Corrections accepted.",
"Putin speaks English.",
"Putin: В Крыме нет никаких российских солдат.\n\nObama: What is he saying?\n\nBiden: He's talking about the weather, I think.",
"Luthor, Obama's anger translator to the rescue",
"Why would you need two translators?",
"I know for larger functions, such as the UN, everything is translated from its native language into English, and then into the other language. \n\nExample: Russia wants to ask Italy a question. Russia submits its question to a translator who translates it into English. Then that is translated to Italian, and is given to Italy. \n\nThe reason for this system (instead of a direct translation from Russian to Italian) is because of the sheer amount of translators that would be required.\n\nIf you have 10 countries that all wanted to talk to eachother using direct translations, then you would need 100 (edit: 45 or 90, see /u/the_full_effect's post below) translators, 10 for each language. By using English as a middle ground, you only need 10 translators, each of them need to know English and one other language. So it is much more efficient. ",
"There's a few episodes of the West Wing where they do this with translators on the line",
"I believe world leaders are extremely concerned not just with communicating clearly but coming across as having higher social status. Communicating with another world leader in their native language would be to yield a little bit of status even if it doesn't hinder clear communication.\n\nYou can find pictures online of world leaders shaking hands and \"fighting\" to be the one standing on the right towards the audience which allows for a more open posture that looks more confident.\n\nThat's why I believe there's no way Putin would speak English with Obama in a public setting even if he could speak the language unhindered. If the call is private then maybe I suppose.",
"Well, Putin can speak English...\n\nbut yeah, in general there are translators involved, although 've always wondered how they knew a translator wasn't purposefully lying about what the other said just to cause drama?",
"Everyone speaks English. Even the Vulcans.",
"They have trusted > interpreters < on the phone with them, not \"translators,\" since interpreters deal with the spoken language and translators work with the written language. For Obama that's an interpreter from the U.S. Department of State.\n\nFun Fact: The actual \"Presidential Hotline\" is not a red phone, or a phone at all, it's a data link that produces text, and hence requires translators, not interpreters. It's also officially called the Direct Communications Link (Liniya Pryamoy Svyazi in Russian).\n\nSource: I'm a former Presidential Hotline translator.\n\nEdit: Putin does not speak English (well enough to conduct negotiations). Even if he did, he would never deign to speak to Obama in English because there's still a great deal of nationalistic pride associated with the language, especially for Putin, to say nothing of the complexity and sensitivity of the discussions, which would really require him to be bilingual.\n\nEven at G-8 meetings where the leaders share a common language they actually almost never use that common language. All the interpreters are just out of camera range when all those photos are taken.\n\n2nd Edit: Correction: Yes, Putin \"speaks English\" but not remotely close enough to the level to conduct serious negotiation (I should have said -- \"Putin does not speak English well enough.\") He is, of course, a former KGB agent, where English was taught quite extensively, but was so meek and ineffectual in the KGB when he was first starting out that he was referred by other agents as \"the moth.\"\n\n",
"Other than that, I think most leaders are fluent in english but using translators make sure nothing is misunderrstood.",
"Each has a translator, even when it is someone like Reagan and Gorbachev. We know Gorbachev could speak English when he wanted to. \n\nSo could Arafat\n\nKing Hussain of Jordan, also.\n\nThere were times when both of those would ditch the translators. \n\nAlso, Churchill, when dealing with the Americans would bounce most of what he planned to say off his American friends just to make sure there was none of this \"Divided by a common language\" stuff that can still crop up occasionally. ",
"They laugh and joke about how the masses really believe they are arguing with each other. Probably the same sort of stuff the Hulkster and Roddy Piper or Randy Savage used to joke about with each other when the fans really got into the act.",
"Both people on the phone would just say \"yes\" alot in english to fool whoever is in the room with them. Then get off the phone and say \"the call was very constructive and we are on the same page\"",
"The world leaders communicate through South African sign language interpreter"
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3a3pmz | why, on an evolutionary perspective, are humans hyper-evolving? we've grown in height just in the past few thousand years, and have much less hair than predecessors. | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/3a3pmz/eli5_why_on_an_evolutionary_perspective_are/ | {
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"Height can be attributed to improved nutrition, look at NK/SK. NK are much shorter than SK even though they were the same people up until very recently. The hair thing requires a citation."
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9dvhct | electric force, electric field, coulomb’s law and gauss’s law | What are these and how do they apply to physics? Any examples regarding them?
Background info: been sick lately and unable to go to class, so I don’t really understand these subjects much apart from their formulas. | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/9dvhct/eli5_electric_force_electric_field_coulombs_law/ | {
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"Physics is, in a broad sense, the study of what things in the universe *are*, how they *move*, and how they *interact*.\n\nCharged objects generate a so-called \"electric field\" around themselves, similar in some ways to how a lightbulb gives off light. Other charged objects \"see\" that field from a distance, and know from the \"color\" (sign) and \"brightness\" (magnitude) how they should react relative to their own charge. This \"reaction\" to the field uses the same math as pushing an object, so people lumped them together as \"forces\". Since this force is related to electricity, they call it the electric force.\n\nCoulomb's law explains that F=ma=k*q*q/r^2, so doubling the distance makes the force weaker by 4 times, and doubling the charge of one object \"only\" doubles the force.\n\nIt was also found that if you drew an imaginary ball (or, it turns out, any closed shape) around a bunch of charged objects, you only need to know the net charge to determine how a charge outside that sphere will react. They called this the Gauss Law, and it's used often to make complex situations easier to calculate. For example, you don't need to know where every rock on earth is and how much mass they have: just how much mass the Earth has in total and how far you are from the center. (Fun fact: mass and electric charge are *really* similar in surprising ways.)",
"Assuming you're taking a physics course, your best bet is to read the relevant explanations in the textbook then go hunting around Youtube or Khan Academy for lectures on these topics. [Here's Khan Academy's basic electric force bit](_URL_2_). If you're in a college level course and know Calculus, you can go to MIT's open course site _URL_3_ and grab the relevant lecture videos under one of the Physics II courses. It may also be helpful to review Stokes' and Greene's Theorems which can be found [here at Khan Academy.](_URL_7_) For basic intuition explained quick and dirty you might look at the Crash Course series who have a video on [electric charge here](_URL_5_) and [electric fields here](_URL_6_). I'd also point out that the Giancoli and Feynman Lecture books in the background of the Crash Course videos are great books that describe exactly what you're asking about.\n\nThe electric field is a vector field. It's just saying that space is filled with invisible arrows (vectors) everywhere that have a direction and size. These arrows are caused by electric charges. [Relevant picture.](_URL_4_) Positive charges have arrows pointing out and negatives have them pointing in. One way of visualizing electric fields is to connect the arrows from source to destination, and draw more lines for stronger charges [like so](_URL_0_).\n\nAny time a charged particle is placed in a position where it can 'feel' the electric field from another particle, it experiences a force. Like charges repel and opposite charges attract. The is electric force. Coulomb's Law is just the expression of how much this force happens with math. [Here's the full equation with explanations of the constants involved.](_URL_1_) The basic gist is that the force is proportional to the strength of both charges multiplied together, then divided by the square of the distance between them: F ∝ (q_1 * q_2) / r^2\n\nGauss's Law asks you to place an imaginary, closed of bubble (like an inflated balloon) somewhere in space, then draw all of the electric field lines from any charges nearby. If the bubble has charges inside of it, then field lines will go through the bubble. If the charges are outside the bubble, then any field lines that go into the bubble will go back out again. A better and fuller explanation is probably not ELI5 appropriate, which is why I referenced the things at the beginning as good sources to go to to learn about this stuff."
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"https://ocw.mit.edu/courses/physics/",
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1o6ofw | why do people with adhd/add not feel the "high" feeling that adderal and other amphetamine based medications give those without it? | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/1o6ofw/eli5_why_do_people_with_adhdadd_not_feel_the_high/ | {
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"People with add/adhd have a chemical imbalance in the prefrontal lob. Basically their dopamine levels are lower then average, so when they take drugs that raise dopamine it their dopamine levels go to the average. Whereas those who don't it would have a surplus levels of dopamine that creates the high.",
"I was diagnosed with ADD and amphetamines got me high as shit if I took them at recreational doses. However, 1) people diagnosed with ADD generally take fairly small doses of stimulants, and 2) low doses of stimulants serve to make anyone more industrious and focused, not just people diagnosed with ADD. I've always doubted the premise that stimulants somehow affect people with ADD differently, although if anyone has a decent study that shows otherwise I'd love to read it.",
"The theory that it affects ADHD brains differently is controversial. It's probably at least partly because people with ADHD are using that medication under the supervision of a doctor and begin with a very, very small does (much less than what would get anyone high). They usually wait around a month before trying a higher does, so that the effect can be clearly judged, until the right dose is eventually found. It is still way less that what is needed to get high. ",
"I was diagnosed with ADD and the medicine they put me one DEFINITELY made me feel fucked up and weird. I took it for 2 weeks then never touched the stuff again. It's just not good."
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6zpkfr | what is a state comptroller? | Pretty much as simple as that, my state has an office called "the office of the comptroller" and I don't really understand what that person does.
Thanks! | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/6zpkfr/eli5_what_is_a_state_comptroller/ | {
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"They're basically a chief accountant/financial officer for the state. They oversee things like state budgets, government spending, government contracts, and paying state employees. ",
"They are like the state's treasurer (or work directly under the treasurer), overseeing the money that comes into the state and gets paid out. Like making sure the tax revenues are in the correct accounts to make payroll for state employees.",
"My dad is a comptroller for the Federal government. He checks out banks, makes sure they follow laws and have a good track record before they open or merge with other banks. "
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9rpd03 | what is the difference between city court, high court, and supreme court, and how is it decided which trials are held where? | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/9rpd03/eli5_what_is_the_difference_between_city_court/ | {
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"There are different courts that hold jurisdiction over different cases. City Court holds jurisdiction over anything within the city limits. A county magistrate would hold jurisdiction over misdemeanors within that county. A general sessions court (in assuming that's what you mean by high Court) handles felonies within that county. The Supreme Court of the state you are in is the highest appellate court in that state.\n\n Appellate courts do not hear criminal cases in the manner that other courts do. They best appeals from lower courts and trial courts and rule on whether or not the lower court or trial ruled correctly in the case in question as it pertains to matters of law.\n\nEdit: the names of the courts will vary depending on the state but that is the basic structure for the US. "
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5fs2ex | why aren't prenuptial agreements standard for marriage licenses? | Tv makes it seem like the hardest part is asking your partner to sign one, so why aren't they just required? Are they still a big deal when both members work? | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/5fs2ex/eli5_why_arent_prenuptial_agreements_standard_for/ | {
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"Some people dont want them?\n\nI'm getting married in May and insisted we don't have one (We earn ~ pay and I even had a higher savings). ",
"The current regime is that state law functions as the default and if the parties agree they can sign a prenup to change the default assumptions. So if you're cool with the default rules (which in most states means economically combining most assets earned during the marriage), which most people are, you don't need them. And prenups only come into play if the marriage dissolves. So the drama is inherent in saying \"I love you and I want to spend the rest of my life with you, but I don't trust you, so I want to make sure I can dump you without it being too expensive.\""
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1ej4cw | why do clouds of tiny flying insects hover in the exact same spot? | We've all seen them, just a basketball-size cloud of gnats all circling each other, remaining more or less at the same altitude and without moving around. They don't swarm you if you get close, and you can walk right through the cloud and it will simply reconstitute itself and remain hovering in place after you've passed. I assume it has something to do with spawning, but...? | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/1ej4cw/eli5_why_do_clouds_of_tiny_flying_insects_hover/ | {
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"Typically there is a female gnat in the center giving of pheromones.",
"Yeap, just horny bug clouds making more bugs. They're everywhere from Feb-Oct around here. Close your mouth when you walk through. ;)",
"They're having sex.",
"So completely off topic, the next time you see this cloud, go \"heeeeee\" really high pitched, and they'll fly higher. Go \"ohhhhhhh\" really low pitched, and the cloud will move down. Way more entertaining than it should be.",
"TIL clouds of gnats are actually an orgy. "
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3oiz9f | where did replacement swears (heck, darn, shoot, etc.) originate? | I'm not sure if this is the right subreddit, but this one seemed the most fitting.
Where did these words come from? The first person to say them would probably be considered weird because they basically just made up a word, so how did they originate and become so popular? | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/3oiz9f/eli5_where_did_replacement_swears_heck_darn_shoot/ | {
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"They sound sort of like the swear words they imitate. Heck=Hell, Darn=Damn, Fudge=Fuck, etc. They're sort of \"safe\" swears because they imply the meaning of the word without actually saying it.\n\nOn an interesting side note \"Cheese and Crackers,\" (Jesus Christ) is banned as a term in the Jehovah's Witnesses because even though it isn't technically blasphemy it's a workaround to essentially invoke blasphemy. ",
"They became forms of dancing the exclamation without crossing into blasphemous territory. \n\nDarn is the evolution of \"eternal damnation\" which became \"tarnation\" which became darn. \n\nMy favorite is a Chaucer era curse: \"God's wounds\" or \"by His wounds\" which by Shakespeare's time became, \"Zounds\". I don't know what happened to Zounds.\n\nI don't know the origin for heck but I suspect it has a similar backstory."
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4nvdg7 | if i fuck up my sleeping schedule and start going to bed at five, what is the best way to go back to going to bed at 11? | Problem is if I try going to bed at eleven immediately I will just turn around and end up falling asleep at 5 anyway. So how earlier is OK to go to bed at a time? | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/4nvdg7/eli5_if_i_fuck_up_my_sleeping_schedule_and_start/ | {
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"The best thing you can do is just making yourself tired over the day.. be active, work-out, whatever..\n\nAlso make sure that just just stand up the time you have to stand up, even if you're fucking tired, just do it, and don't sleep that afternoon, wait till it's evening!\n\nIt usually takes like 2 weeks before your body is used to a new sleeping schedule so you should give it some time.",
"Your easiest path is to go to bed at 5 as normal, set an alarm for 7, get up, have a horrible day where everything looks gray and you have a killer headache, and go to bed at 9 or 10 PM. "
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1tuolo | why was communism a particularly hostile threat to america (to the point of squashing even infant communist regimes via the cia), and why aren't north korea and china pursued in a similar way? | I suppose a common explanation against pursuing North Korea is "they don't pose any real threat to anyone", but historically America has jumped at the opportunity to thwart for example, a foreign communist rebellion, although I would argue that a rebellion is a long way from a threat. Additionally, North Korea is a pretty good example of communism failing miserably (perhaps why it isn't a threat), but was America ever seriously concerned that people would one day think "you know, I think communism is the answer", and therefore desperately wanted to keep it from spreading? | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/1tuolo/eli5_why_was_communism_a_particularly_hostile/ | {
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"China, before Mao (before and during WWII), were allies to the US, since Mao's death relations have been improve with them.\n\nThe UN and the US went to war with North Korea, a significant war. At the time, Korea was supported by Moaist Chinese.\n\n100s of million of people died as a result of communists and their conquests. it wasn't trivial."
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3vxoc4 | why does the cat in the video cease all movement when they simply put a clamp on its back? | This is the video I'm talking about:
_URL_0_
It seems like magic! The cat just stops moving completely. Implied in my question is the expectation that this happens to many more cats, not just the one in the vid, is this correct?
I apologize for the bad formatting and linking, I'm posting from mobile. | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/3vxoc4/eli5_why_does_the_cat_in_the_video_cease_all/ | {
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"Cat mothers (and some other animals too) tend to carry around their offpring by holding them in the neck. This is a kind of natural mechanism that ensures that the kittens do not move and hurt themselves while being carried. Apparently it also works for adult cats.",
"Swans have a mechanism that works in a similar way, wherebyputting pressure on the two 'spots' above their beak forces them to regurgitate food. It's a behaviour that seems to be innate. In the Swan's case, it's chicks peck at the spots to get food. In the Cat's case, it's also a parental thing - \"Stay still, I'm carrying you now.\""
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4h1d15 | why are officials burning tons of ivory in order to fight smuggling? | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/4h1d15/eli5_why_are_officials_burning_tons_of_ivory_in/ | {
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"Well what are they going to do... sell it?",
"Because they want to kill the market for ivory entirely. If they sell the ivory then they add on to the existing ivory market and if there's an ivory market there will be a way for poachers to sell illegal ivory. If they don't sell the ivory they have to store it or dispose of it somehow.\n\nIt's the same reason cops destroy drugs after they're no longer needed as evidence. If your stance as a government is \"this should never be traded\" then you can't exactly turn around and sell the thing you're trying to ban and expect the ban to work."
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5um48t | why dogs within 5 seconds of meeting each other know if they are friends or enemies. | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/5um48t/eli5_why_dogs_within_5_seconds_of_meeting_each/ | {
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"I hope someone answers this. ",
"It's all about body language. Dogs don't really become friends or enemies but they do establish an order when they meet. Who is the leader of the pack when they meet. Some dogs will fight to be the leader, some will roll over on their backs immediately with every dog they meet as a sign of submission. Most dogs fall between and check each dog out. \n\nTwo dogs that haven't figured their order out tend to cover each others pee, one will hump the other, or put their head over the neck of the other. These are all signs of establishing dominance. They'll tend to become more and more aggressive with the signs until the one they're trying to dominate submits or has had enough and they fight. \n\n\nMy husky used to be really dominant aggressive before I got him fixed. I had to learn his signs and jump in to get him to back off before a fight. He still sends dominant messages when he walks in a park but doesn't fight unless he gets bitten first. ",
"I'm not going to say this an official answer to your question, but we humans communicate with body language, however with dogs, their communication is primarily non-aural. A dog can project what they are feeling with their stance, tail, and their eyes. This is not only a statement of \"how I am feeling right now\" but also \"this is my place in the pack\". If two dogs that dominate as alpha (at home) meet, and one doesn't show submissive signs to the other, there is conflict. Even dogs that are yards/meters away from each other can look at each other and see the stride, tail position, and overall demeanor of the other animal. ",
"Dog's obtain most of the information they need from smelling one another, such as sex, age, and pack rank. If you have two high ranking pack animals meet, they will fight it out until a new order is established. This is why the initial contact is usually very tense followed by either friendliness or hostilities. \n\nIf they're friendly one recognizes where he fits within this new pack and is ok with their status. If hostilities ensue basically the exchange went some like:\n \"Hello, my name is Inigo Montoya, you killed my father, prepare to die.\" And they simply have what would be considered a duel. \n\nNow I know this all seems really light hearted. But it really does boil down to those simple things.",
"Body Language. It's a crucial part of their communication.\n\nImagine you lived in a very violent neighbourhood. Now imagine you had no way of gauging whether someone approaching you on the streets is friendly or not.\n\nAn even worse scenario: Imagine you had a way of knowing whether someone is friendly, but that it worked sometimes, and sometimes it didn't. Also imagine that outward display of friendliness can be faked.\nNow picture a tall, ripped guy walking towards you. What goes through your head?\n\nWithout body language, dogs would be in much the same position almost every time they met another individual. Fortunately, they have a very elaborate body language that enables them to communicate interest/aggression/friendliness/curiosity to each other. Also, at least among dogs, this body language is not usually faked (coyotes and wolves do lure dogs out of safe territory by pretending though). So when the tall, ripped guy is approaching you in the streets, you know instantly what's up with him. If he/she wants a fight, or to play, or is just curious. Even better, you know how to respond in a way he/she will understand. If he/she is aggressive, you know what to do to avoid conflict (or to engage if you're up to it). If they're friendly, you know what to do to indicate that you're also friendly.",
"I am surprised at the number of comments that focus on the alpha dog model of behavior which is pretty debunked now.\n\nTo answer the OP's question, dogs have a lot of non-verbal cues leading up to the actual contact. The rules one learns about approaching dogs (don't approach head-on, don't make forced sustained eye contact, etc.) apply to dog-to-dog interactions too. For example, my friend's dog charges in to meet new dogs rather than first stopping a little bit away so the dogs can observe each other, so she makes other dogs nervous this way. This is why people talk about socializing dogs, so their pets can learn social cues and get along with others.\n\nSimilar to how dogs that have anxiety or poor impulse control display aggressive behaviors to humans, dogs that are nervous or impulsive can appear aggressive. Dogs can also reflect the energy they get from other dogs, so one anxious dog that is snapping will make another dog anxious and aggro too.\n\nBasically, a dog is communicating with another dog long before they actually make contact, so what to you is a 2 second interaction is already a five minute convo and that's enough to establish how you feel about someone.",
"I'm not a dog expert, but I'm currently raising three dogs and have spent the last five years training them. Based on initial training that I learned from dog trainers and from my own experience over the last five years, I've seen that dogs have a \"doggy etiquette.\" \n\nAs others in this thread have pointed out, dogs communicate with body language. If upon meeting each other two dogs are communicating \"rudely\" (both trying to dominate), there will be some aggression. If both dogs are rather aloof, then the initial meeting will be curiosity based. I'm not implying that dogs take offense because I think that requires the presence of an ego which dogs don't really have. I just mean that if the other dog is communicating with their body language an aggressive stance, then the dog receiving that message will react accordingly if they are somewhat also dominant. The whole scenario depends on whether one or both dogs is dominant. \n\nI've also seen what I can only describe as introverted and extroverted dogs. The extroverted ones will go right up to another dog and get into their space sniffing whatever they want even if the other dog is clearly communicating they don't appreciate it. The introverted ones will meekly sniff the other dog but as soon as the other dog communicates that's enough the introverted dog will back off. I don't know, maybe this is just dominant versus non-dominant dogs.\n\nLastly, I've also seen that there appears to be an unspoken protocol for meeting a new dog. The protocol seems to be to communicate non dominance through limited passivity in body language, approach the other dog slowly and calmly, sniff the scent areas in the rear but only for a few seconds, and then demonstrate aloofness. Breaching any of these unspoken rules tends to set off a momentary aggression between the two. When one dog ignores tense body language from the other, you'll also see some aggression.\n\nAgain, I'm no expert and maybe the experts will refute my observations, but this is what I've seen and how I explain it. There are also ways a dog can communicate that it's not a threat. These are called appeasement gestures (yawning, licking lips, looking away, play bowing, etc) but that's a whole other conversation.",
"Despite people referencing dominance theroy as an answer, please know that dominance theroy is disproven and not based on science. Dogs do NOT operate on a alpha or submissive scale. Some dogs are dog selective in who the like and body language and play style are the most important roles when a dog is deciding who they like. ",
"Many people seem to believe the pack theory of dominance, but I believe this has been debunked and [isn't believed by most experts who study dogs and wolves](_URL_0_). I linked one source, but it is easy to find multiple other sources on this online. I think this is illustrated very well in the fact that the best trained dogs are not beat or hit when they do wrong (negative conditioning) but are instead rewarded when they do right (positive condition) because there isn't any need to establish \"dominance\". \n\nDog \"introductions\" really come down to territory, protection, social skills, and personality. If a dog feels their territory is being invaded, they may show aggression. If they feel in danger or that their friend (owner) is in danger, they may show aggression. If they have poor socialization amongst other dogs, like not meeting any before, they may show aggression. A dog's personality usually comes down to experience and training. If they have been trained to be aggressive, it is more likely they will be aggressive to others. \n\nI also think the \"little dog syndrome\" has a bit of truth in it. Little dogs probably feel threatened more when near a big dog while the big dog doesn't feel threatened at all. To compensate, little dogs act batshit crazy. This has been my experience with little dogs at least.\n\nEdit: sentence structure ",
"Hey, I just want to say that if two dogs are friendly, that does not mean that they are \"friends\" now and won't ever fight. This is a really bad concept to perpetuate because it leads to people who already own a dog getting a shelter dog, then not supervising them properly. I used to volunteer at a rescue and we had so many damn people adopt a dog, only to leave the new dog unsupervised with their current dog after a few hours because \"it seemed like they were getting along so well!\" but the dogs got into a fight. We told them many times that they need to slowly acclimate the dogs, over at least a week's time, with a ton of supervision, but so many people have the \"awww the doggies are best friends!!\" idea in their head. Then they freak out and give the dog back to the shelter.\n\n",
"Possibly related question:\n\n\nIs it true that a dog's tail, and the way that it moves, serves as a non verbal cue for other dogs? If so, does that mean that dogs that traditionally have docked tails get \"misread\" by other dogs? ",
"Short answer, they don't. All they know within five seconds of meeting each other is how comfortable they are with that interaction in that particular moment. Relationships take time to develop.",
"Mostly it's body language as they see each other. As an ACO we're trained to mimic it to raise the possibility of a positive encounter. Last week I picked up a 136.5 pound Presa and my training probably saved me from a very messy fight. \n\nHe was behind the house and came around the corner because he heard me coming. He immediately tensed up (they see our uniforms and catchpoles and that's often the initial reaction). I quickly squatted down turning slightly away from him and put my pole down on the ground. Within a few seconds he came right over and I got him on a leash. Getting him into the truck was another battle but he was never aggressive towards me.\n\nSomething to keep in mind is that two dogs greeting each other face to face on leashes is a very unnatural way for it to happen. Also any cosmetic changes (cropped ears for instance) make it harder for other dogs to read the body language of the cosmetically altered dog. "
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3yqzea | why is insurance federally required? how can the government force you to conduct business with a third party? | [deleted] | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/3yqzea/eli5_why_is_insurance_federally_required_how_can/ | {
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"If i remember correctly, the supreme court allowed the aca mandate on the basis that it is essentially a tax that you are exempted from if you meet a certain requirement. The government can tax and it can decide what exemptions and deductions to include, therefore it was deemed legal. It is a bit ironic that esssentially calling it a tax is what saved it as advocates had been adament about saying it wasn't a tax before hand. (Personally I'm for the law, but still find it ironic).\n\nDriving insurance is far more straight forward, as you are choosing voluntarily to engage in an activity that has the high potential of harming others, it can force you to get licenced to prove you are capable and force you to have the financial capacity to compensate someone you might hurt. \n\n"
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40qee2 | how does an op amp work and is it similar to a transistor? please strictly eli5 | Op amp had two inputs and one output.
Transistor had two inputs and one output | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/40qee2/eli5_how_does_an_op_amp_work_and_is_it_similar_to/ | {
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"OP amp is a complicated topic for ELI5 but I can tell you something useful, an op-amp is made from several transistors hooked up together. \n\nWhat you're noticing is called *abstraction*. It's a very powerful concept when you go to make any complicated system. You can take a complex chunk of the system and draw a box around it and only show the inputs and the outputs. \n\nAs long as you know what kind of output you'll get when you stick a known value into the input, you don't have to care about how it works on the inside. \n\n"
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5drqtv | why is this fruit rotted and the others are still good? | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/5drqtv/eli5_why_is_this_fruit_rotted_and_the_others_are/ | {
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"One might have been plucked earlier, or has been in contact with something else that was already rotting.\n\n"
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3m7827 | why did google chrome kill unity? | I don't understand why having it is a bad thing. If it crashes then it crashes and you reload the site. What's the deal? | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/3m7827/eli5_why_did_google_chrome_kill_unity/ | {
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"It wasn't just Unity; Chrome stopped supporting everything using the NPAPI standard.\n\nThe reason is that Google wants to promote the use of its own, more modern PPAPI, which is a derivative of NPAPI."
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2ukuiu | why does it take so long to port pc games to macs? | It seems like Mac users have to wait about another year after games have been released to receive their version. | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/2ukuiu/eli5_why_does_it_take_so_long_to_port_pc_games_to/ | {
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"Macs have a very small share of the market, and many Mac users aren't gamers. There's not much incentive to try and make a port for a game on short notice. ",
"Bobdole3-2 is basically right. \n\nMacs are essentially irrelevant in the marketplace. The steam hardware survey for january seems to be broken, but\n\n_URL_0_ has some data from about 2 years ago. Mac's combined to 3.26% of the steam userbase. That's not a perfect reflection of mac gamer marketshare, but it's a large enough sample to get the idea.\n\nBecause of that, what happens is that developers usually hire someone to do the port for them - there are companies that specialize in this. But they usually wait until after the game is done and any major patches have happened before really getting into the work.\n\nNow the good/bad news is that newer engines aim to be cross platform compatible. Basically if you're making it for Windows, Android (3 versions or more), iOS, PS4, XB3, maybe WiiU, adding OSX into the mix isn't a huge problem. Both Unity and Unreal engine support mac for example. But not everyone uses those multiplatform engines and even if they do it might not be worth the time to invest in testing and fixing anything wrong with a mac version. \n\nWriting real software has a lot of platform and operating system level stuff that happens. Even if the graphics might be easy to port from OpenGl for windows to OpenGl on mac (which is the same OpenGl), keyboard input, audio playback etc. are different, and you need to write code to deal with that. And frankly, mac users aren't worth the investment most of the time, it's usually much more reasonable to expect your mac users who want to PC game will also have a windows PC. \n\nEdit: one should add that a lot of this push to multiplatform is due to windows 8 and the windows store. If microsoft are smart enough to largely abandon the store option, and if windows 10 isn't a complete clusterfuck expect mac support to start to erode further unless something dramatically changes. "
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5h1ko1 | doctors, what difference does it make if the pain is sharp or blunt? why do you ask me this? what do different kinds of pain "mean"? | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/5h1ko1/eli5_doctors_what_difference_does_it_make_if_the/ | {
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"Doc here.\n\nTechnical Speak coming up, TL;DR and ELI5 at the bottom of the answer.\n\nPain is a subjective sensation that has an effect on emotion, mood, thoughts and the physical status of a person. It is subject to individual perception, and the intensity of pain varies from one individual to another based on their emotional state, individual pain threshold, health conditions and a few other things. \n\nPain is an unpleasant sensory and emotional experience associated with actual or potential tissue damage, or described in terms of such damage. It is needed in order to ensure that the organism takes steps to minimise or avoid bodily harm. There are a lot of different ways in which pain is perceived, and some of these ways have been correlated to actual pathology in the body.\n\nFor example, the pain of a heart attack is very distinctive, and is typically described as feeling as if there is \"a tight vice around your chest\". This is in contrast to the pain from pneumonia, which is a sudden, abrupt and temporary sensation, often described as sharp or stabbing, and typically increases everytime you breathe or cough.\n\nOther types of pain can be muscle aches or bowel pain such as cramps or bloating, which are more diffuse, harder to point out and generally feel like a tube is twisting or stretching inside.\n\nAgain, these are all subjective sensations, which require the person suffering from it to articulate it properly. Vague complaints would be \"just pain\", which is very unhelpful, so doctors use words such as sharp, burning, twisting, stabbing and so on to try and narrow down the kind of pain, to more accurately diagnose the problem you come with. You could look it up, there are about 50 different attributes to describe \"just pain\", and each one is indicative of some disease or the other. \n\nAll pain is in your head. Technically, it's perceived in several parts of the brain, with the final say coming in from the wrinkly portion of the old noodle, which points out where in the body the pain is being felt. Because your skin, muscles and bones tend to come in contact with the outer world more often than your spleen or intestines, the skin tends to have a very rich supply of receptors in order to detect pain. This sort of pain is very well represented in the brain, and is easy to localize and point out. Typically, injured cells release a lot of stuff, which triggers the body's clean up crew to come in. The chemical triggers that call for help, also stimulate nerves to create the sensation of pain, in order to warn the organism on a conscious level. This sort of pain is what we call, in doctorspeak, as somatic pain.\n\nIn contrast, visceral pain comes from the internal organs. This pain is not very well localized, and tends to be extremely vague, partly because the area of representation allocated in the brain is much smaller compared to the sheer surface area of organs inside the body. These sort of pain fibers are also stimulated by the same chemical triggers as somatic nerves as well as other things like stretch, inflammation and so on, but the pain perceived in these areas is felt as different. As /u/bezoarboy rightly pointed out.\n\n**TL;DR**\n\nPain perception on a conscious level is complicated and incompletely understood, simply because the answer to it lies in the mechanism of consciousness. On a physiological level however, pain transmission has been mapped out fairly well, and the knowledge and understanding of the cause of different sensations of pain aids doctors into narrowing down the patient's actual problem.\n\n**ELI5**\n\nPain feels different depending on where in the body it is coming from. **Doctors ask people who suffer from pain to describe it, because they have learnt about what can cause such pain from studying and treating people who have complained of the same kind of pain before.** There are a lot of different ways pain can be felt, and the reason for this is because of the way the nerves carry pain from different areas. Some pain such as pain from a heart that's not getting enough blood, feels like your chest is being crushed. Why ? Because a lot of people who had heart attacks said they felt that way. There are other kinds of pain too, and the way this sort of pain can be felt and understood by you depends on how much attention your brain is giving it. \n\nEdit : Added a brief bit on pain perception. ELI5'ed at the end.\n\nThanks to /u/fragilespleen for the accepted definition of pain.",
"Sharp pain is intense and often in a small area, like hitting your thumb with a hammer.\n\nBlunt pain is weaker, or often in a larger area, like getting hit with a brick.\n\nGnawing pain would be multiple blunt pains in the same general area, like if you chewed on your arm.\n\nPulsating pain is tied to your pulse, like a migraine.\n\nThis list isn't exhaustive, and I'm only an anatomy student, but it's the best I could do on an empty stomach. ",
"Doctors ask questions to try to get from a general complaint like \"It hurts\" to the very specific \"It hurts because there's a dissecting aortic aneurysm and I need to get you into an operating room right now.\"\n\nThe best doctors know the universe of possibilities they're trying to rule-in or rule-out. Each question should be helping to shape a list of possible diagnosis, and the relative ranking of them, from most to least likely (the \"differential diagnosis\"), or else the diagnoses that are unlikely, but would be devastating if missed.\n\nPain receptors in different parts of the body are perceived differently. If you have a cut on your skin, it's more likely to feel sharp. If you have an obstruction in your intestines, it's more likely to feel dull / achy.\n\nObviously, \"sharp\" and \"blunt\" doesn't get you enough information to figure out what's going on. So, doctors often have mnemonics to help them remember to ask more questions. One example is \"FAR COLDER\":\n\n* Frequency (how often)\n* Associated symptoms (what else happens)\n* Radiation (whether it spreads from one spot to another)\n* Character (sharp, dull)\n* Onset (when did it start)\n* Location (where)\n* Duration (how long)\n* Exacerbating factors (what makes it worse)\n* Relieving Factors (what makes it better)\n\n*LPT: if you are going to a doctor and you can describe you problem in one long sentence including all the parts of FARCOLDER, your doctor will be amazed, and you'll be much more likely to get your issue figured out quickly*\n\nIf after asking the right questions, the story is \"Patient has dull pain in the chest, radiating to the neck, worsened by climbing stairs, improved after resting\", they would probably be thinking \"heart attack.\"\n\nIf, instead, it where \"Loss of appetite, and then dull pain around the belly button that becomes sharp as it moves to the lower right abdomen, associated with nausea and vomiting, and low-grade temperatures\", it's time to look for appendicitis.\n",
"Doctor here\n\nDifferent types of pain relate to the types of underlying innervation\n\nSo skin and other tissues closer to the surface are good at conveying 'sharp' 'hot' cold' type sensations. They are mapped fairly accurately in your brain to the area of skin they come from which is good for avoiding specific injuries \n\nDeeper nerves are classed as 'visceral' and aren't mapped as well. These give different types of pain, but are more generalised over larger body areas and tend to feel like 'aches' and 'pressure' \n\nBit of your body that have muscles in them like your intestine tend to be painful in a visceral sense when the muscles contract, so comes in waves as 'colicky or 'crampy' pain\n\nWe ask these questions to try and broadly distinguish between the different parts of body that can cause pain and what might be affected. Obviously this is a sweeping generalisation as alot of pain is affected by your brain via emotion, situation etc etc which we don't fully understand but it's a useful basis for diagnosis!\n\n",
"Recovery room nurse here. If my patient says his pain is sharp/ burning, I know that's what it feels like when someone cuts your skin with a scalpel & your numbing medicine was insufficient & I better medicate you right fucking now because as you become more awake you're going to be in a world of hurt! If my patient says he feels pressure, I know that numbing medicine does not hide pressure/squeezing sensation, I better start treating you for swelling & anxiety. Other things mean look for other problems, but those are my big two. The way I see it, if you can't describe your pain, it must not be too bad.",
"In the dental worlx:\n\nSharp pain usually means that a cavity is deep and responds to thing like sweets and cold.\n\nDull constant pain usually means that a tooth is inflamed and is usually a precursor to violent throbbing pain.\n\nViolent throbbing pain means that the infection is fighting through the mucosal tissue to break through bone. Once its through the bone the pain usually stops and an abcess will form.\n\nThe type of pain usually describes to us what action we need to take quickly before it escalates.",
"Not a doc, but a paramedic and 911 dispatcher. Certain descriptions of pain -can- be of extreme importance in triaging prehospital calls. If we get a call for a 'tearing' back or abdominal pain, it is a huge keyword for us that the patient may be experiencing an abdominal aortic aneurysm, which is a rare but potentially very dangerous condition. Very, very few people ever describe pain this way on a 911 call, so when we hear 'tearing' pain in the chest, back, or abdomen, it may trigger a lights and siren response, and raise the priority of the call. In my -extremely limited education and experience compared to a doc or nurse- there are not a lot of pain descriptors that are, in isolation, very telling. Usually they help paint a picture when combined with a lot of other signs and symptoms. Ie. a tearing pain in the toe doesn't worry me too much. A tearing pain in the back combined with cold sweats and grey skin colour suggests to me this is now my highest priority patient.",
"Yep pain quality can definitely point for or against a diagnosis. For example, chest pain that is sharp is unlikely to be cardiac related. But dull, pressure like pain is very alarming for a heart attack or angina.",
"Dentist here. As far as tooth pain goes, a sharp but quick pain tends to be reversible pulpitis (you might be able to get away with just a filling or crown) while a constant dull aching or pulsating pain tends to be irreversible pulpitis which may indicate you need root canal treatment. \n\n(Either way, you should see your dentist before it becomes worse)",
"Having enjoyed my kidney issues for each of my 42 years, & having undergone in excess of 85 surgeries for these... & related issues;\n\nHow do we think the new opioid guidelines will impact pain, the patients who need the medications and won't be able to get them, and medicine as an institution?\n\nI'm new, so please advise if this should be a sub'...I thought it applicable, ergo....I came, I saw, I posted.",
"The different kinds of pain can tell us a lot about where it may be coming from.\n\nSharp pain usually comes from skin, bones and sometimes directly from damaged nerves. Generally speaking, from the \"outer\" parts of the body.\n\nThe inner organs like stomach, intestine or heart usually cause a blunt, diffuse kind of pain.\n\nA pulsating/throbbing pain can be sign of a local infection/inflammation.\n\nPain that is coming and going in waves usually comes from organs that have smooth muscle tissue which contracts periodically. Typical examples are the ureters (=kidney stones), gall bladder (gall stones) or uterus (childbirth).\n\nIf someone tells me that they have a pain in their chest, it can be sign of a heart attack or similar conditions. But if they can point their finger at the exact spot where the pain is coming from and describe it as a sharp pain, it's most likely coming from the ribs or the nerves between the ribs. The pain from a heart attack would be more diffuse, often spreading to other areas like the left arm, jaw or stomach. Patients will typically use their whole hand to show you the general area, instead of pointing somewhere with their finger.\n\nA patient with an appendicitis will typically first describe a blunt, diffuse pain somewhere in their stomach, without being able to point to a certain spot. This is the pain that is coming from the Appendix itself. When the infection spreads to the abdominal wall, they will start feeling a different kind of pain. Much sharper and more localized, usually in the lower right abdomen.\n\nChildren usually aren't that familiar with their body yet, so any kind of pain is \"stomach pain\". They just can't really connect the pain to a certain part of their body yet.",
"After reading the replies on this thread, now everything hurts in one way or another. Why did I keep reading?",
"Alot of long winded answers here. Basically we question patients to try to make an educated guess based on their symptoms what the most likely cause is. Certain conditions typically cause certain types of pain so we ask about it because the type of pain you describe can give clues to the underlying cause. ",
"Nobody important here:\nNo one gave an ELLI5 yet even though they said they did. What you need is a pediatric doctor to explain it to you",
"Doctor of Physical Therapy ( it counts dammit!)\n\nEli5 answer:\n\nSharp=neuro related, maybe musculoskeltal\n\nblunt/achy=generally musculoskeletal\n\npulsating=vascular issue \n\ngnawing=dog chewing on leg, honestly dont know this one\n\nIt is more in-depth than this, but this is the idea. It is a piece to add to your puzzle that is you condition. Helps PTs know whether to treat or refer out."
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g2yk5g | why do wi-fi and bluetooth need my location? | I am concerned about my privacy and have turned on location only for essential services. Can I safely turn off networking and wireless in location services? | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/g2yk5g/eli5_why_do_wifi_and_bluetooth_need_my_location/ | {
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"If I remember correctly, it's because the SSID's (The name/fingerprint) of WiFi and Bluetooth can be used to figure out your location anyway\n\n[Yeeeee](_URL_0_)"
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2hwd9h | why is the past tense of hang "hung" when talking about an object but "hanged" when talking about a person? | I've always wondered this, however you can really tell someone's aptitude for grammar if they can correctly use the past tense of hang. | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/2hwd9h/eli5_why_is_the_past_tense_of_hang_hung_when/ | {
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"The words hanged and hung can be used interchangeably as the past tense and past participle of the verb to hang. So, the bottom line is that you cannot make a mistake by using one of these words instead of the other. \n\nIn regards to an execution, hanged is preferred, but not required.\n\n",
"Traditionally, the words can be used interchangeably; as has already been mentioned, but it is highly discouraged to use hung when talking about the person or hanged with regard to a tapestry. \n\nLanguages are constantly evolving and this is just one recent change that although seems quite arbitrary, so is language in it's entirety. ",
"As far as modern British English is concerned, *hung* is the normal form in most general uses, e.g. they hung out the washing; but *hanged* is the form normally used in reference to execution by hanging: the prisoner was hanged. \n\nThe reason for this distinction is a complex historical one: hanged, the earlier form, was superseded by hung sometime after the 16th century; it is likely that the retention of hanged for the execution sense may have to do with the tendency of archaic forms to remain in the legal language of the courts.\n\nEDIT: see also /u/obiwanspicoli's excellent reply below.",
"Three different verbs, one strong, two weak, merged at different times throughout the history of English. Ultimately they became just the one verb we have, 'hang', but kept the weak past participle 'hanged' for transitive use in legal context, while the(relatively recent) strong past participle 'hung' became regular for all other uses of the verb.\n\nYou know how people sometimes like to sound important while using archaic phrases? Well judges, and people imitating judges, more or less kept 'hanged' around.\n\nFor anyone who cares, the original strong past participle had been 'hangen' before it was replaced by 'hung'.",
"If you start talking about how hung someone is, people are going to get confused."
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2n7avq | why does an ipad mini or hybrid laptop sell for $200-300 but new iphones cost $600? | There are tablets with 4LTE technology so is the "phone" part really that expensive? | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/2n7avq/eli5_why_does_an_ipad_mini_or_hybrid_laptop_sell/ | {
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"The fact that they are smaller makes them more expensive.\n\nThey have to cram a comparable amount of computing power into a smaller container, so they require newer and thus more expensive technology.",
"Someone mentioned that smaller electronics are more expensive to make which is definitely true, but iPhones are so expensive for a different reason. They want to encourage people to buy the phones at a discount by creating or renewing their contracts with cell carriers (Att, Verizon, etc.). The $600 price discourages people from paying full price. Here's a breakdown of Apple's costs for production:\n\n\n[A 16GB iPhone 6 cost Apple $200.10. The device is selling for $649 in the U.S. without a contract with a wireless carrier.](_URL_1_)\n\n[A 16gb wifi only iPad Air 2 costs apple $275 to produce and retails for $499.](_URL_0_)\n\nSo, you can see that the iPhone is cheaper to make and retails for more than the iPad. Apple really wants people to get cell contracts, and they also know that early adopters will pay full price for the phone before their 2-year contract expires. It's a win-win for Apple.\n\n"
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1lwr7o | why are newer smartphones so much easier to break than "old" ones? | I have a 2009 Nokia touchscreen phone. It's been through drops, falls, and thrown from the back of the car to the windshield, yet it's still in relatively good shape. However, my friend dropped his iPhone and it cracked. Badly. So why are newer phones so weak? | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/1lwr7o/eli5_why_are_newer_smartphones_so_much_easier_to/ | {
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"Nokia's are the beast. Although I did dropkick my iPhone 3g and drop my iphone 4 more than all my other phones combined and neither broke. Iphone 4 still in use by someone. I cringe when I drop my s3 though. ",
"The big change has been making the entirety of one side a fragile glass screen. \n\nThe decision to make the bezels thin means that there is little space to absorb impacts without putting the forces onto that large, fragile glass panel. They try to make the phone strong instead, but the desire to make the phone as thin and light as possible compromises that as well.\n\nTough, modern phones do exist. My Motorola Defy has been dropped many times. It has a tough, rounded bezel that absorbs impacts."
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2dz247 | movie profits. | So say a movie does really well and sells a lot of tickets and eventually a lot of DVD/Blueray copies, to who does the profit go? Actors and staff get their salary, distribution fees and licenses take their toll.. but when a movie has paid it's dues and is still making money, where does it go to? Does this change years later, when people are still buying copies? | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/2dz247/eli5_movie_profits/ | {
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"Some people are given a lump sum for the job and never get paid again, others have \"points\", which means they keep getting paid a percentage for as long as the movie makes money."
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4enjwh | water jets. how can the water have so much pressure that it can cut steel? | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/4enjwh/eli5_water_jets_how_can_the_water_have_so_much/ | {
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"How far something will penetrate into something else is a factor of one thing, and one thing only.\n\n**SPEED**\n\nWhen something under pressure, moves to a lower pressure environment it moves FAST. So fast that even steel isn't enough to get in its way. It'll be pushed out of the way! Or cut.",
"Shoot almost anything fast enough and itll go through something else.\n\nThat said water jet cutters add in sand to the water to make it more abrasive and help it cut through metal. This makes it somewhat easier."
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2rlp8l | obama's power of veto. | I vaguely understand that Obama is allowed to veto bills, but what is stopping him from vetoing anything he disagrees with? What exactly is the extent of the veto power? | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/2rlp8l/eli5_obamas_power_of_veto/ | {
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"basically, a bill is written by congress and is passed with a majority vote, which means that > 50% voted yes to it. It then goes to the president to be signed into law. However, if he disagrees with the bill, he can veto it, which sends it back to congress. Congress can either:\n\n1. Revise the bill and make changes that compromise with the president's wishes\n\nor\n\n2. Vote on the bill as is, and if it passes a 2/3 majority, then the veto is essentially ignored and the bill then becomes law.",
"The president may veto any bill passed by both the Senate and the House. However, if after the veto the bill is passed again with a 2/3rds majority in both the Senate and the House the bill becomes law and the president cannot veto it again.",
"Also: Obama has only vetoed two bills. His predecessor George W. Bush used a veto 12 times.\n\nBut if Obama does it a third time, you can count on him to be declared a dictator.",
"As others have said, he can veto anything he wants and if congress can get 2/3 to vote yes on it a second time, it over-rides the presidents veto.\n\nBut also, it's just political capital that he stands to lose. He cannot veto individual parts of a law that comes before his desk, and thus it's all or nothing when he signs it. If he vetoed every bill he had any disagreement on, he'd probably wind up vetoing way more bills than would look good."
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2de5nr | what is a second? | Why did did seconds become a unit of time? What is the meaning of it? | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/2de5nr/eli5_what_is_a_second/ | {
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"The second (symbol: s) is the base unit of time in the International System of Units (SI) and is also a unit of time in other systems of measurement (abbreviated s or sec); it is the second division of the hour by sixty, the first division by 60 being the minute. Between AD 1000 (when al-Biruni used seconds) and 1960 the second was defined as 1/86,400 of a mean solar day (that definition still applies in some astronomical and legal contexts). Between 1960 and 1967, it was defined in terms of the period of the Earth's orbit around the Sun in 1900, but it is now defined more precisely in atomic terms. Seconds may be measured using mechanical, electric or atomic clocks.\n\nIt has no more meaning than what we give it, the same with most units of measurement. Obviously things like days, years, seasons, etc are all in relation to physical occurrences, the rotation of the earth, the orbit of the earth, the slant of the earth, etc.\n\nBut things like months, weeks, hours, minutes, seconds, etc don't have any meaning outside of what we have given them.\n\nEDIT - I know that months are in relation to the lunar cycle, but it isn't like that anymore, as the first isn't always a new moon and the 15th isn't always a full moon.",
"Between about 1000 AD and 1960, the second was defined as 1/86400 of a mean solar day (we have about 86400 seconds in a day). While it should be noted that this definition still applies in some contexts, it is now measured in atomic terms. Since 1967, the second has been defined as the duration of 9,192,631,770 periods of the radiation corresponding to the transision between the two hyperfine levels of the ground state of the caesium 133 atom. Grossly simplifying, it's the duration of 9,192,631,770 radiation cycles of the caesium 133 atom."
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2fgrgv | why do people not like calluses and how can i create them 'automatically'? | I've often thought about this. I think calluses are awesome and super useful. Want to chop a bunch of wood but don't have a callus? You're screwed.
My wife, however, hates them and removes them when she sees one forming. She's not the only one I know that does that.
Also, why don't we have a machine that could constantly irritate the skin just slightly, but repeatedly over time so that we could form a callus quickly and with less chance of blistering? What would be the best way to do this (i.e. Once per day for 5 minutes or 5 times per day for 1 minute)? | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/2fgrgv/eli5_why_do_people_not_like_calluses_and_how_can/ | {
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"I was a gymnast and I would get calluses on my hands from doing the rings, high bar, and parallel bars. The problem with them is that they would form on certain parts of the hand, but if they were not trimmed, they would rip at the surrounding good tissue creating havoc. I ripped my hand bad many times from not keeping the calluses trimmed properly. ",
"Personal preference? That's all it boils down to. Some people think they're unsightly. As a bass player, I find them quite useful since I can play for longer without getting sore fingers.",
"I'm a woman, I like having soft skin. Callouses are rough to the touch. I just like soft skin. I'm pretty infrequently in a situation where I might develop a blister, but I touch my skin daily. "
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ewluzg | why 2 senators represent 39 million people in california and 2 senators represent 600,000 people in wyoming? | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/ewluzg/eli5_why_2_senators_represent_39_million_people/ | {
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"Because the Senate *isnt* for popular representation? That is what the House of Representatives is for.\n\nThe Senate represents *the States*, and the whole split between the House of Reps and the Senate was the result of a compromise between small-population states (who wanted equal representation as per the Senate) and the larger-population states (who wanted population-based represen as per the HoR)\n\nNow, granted, their are issues with the HoR and how many people each rep represents, but dont try to make the US Senate something it isnt.",
"The Senators don’t directly represent people. They represent US states. Originally, many senators weren’t even elected, but were appointed by state governments. So, in that case, the state of California and the state of Wyoming are equals in the US government. Both are represented by two senators.\n\nMeanwhile, Representatives are in the other part of the legislative branch to represent the people. In this case, each representative represents about 700,000 people. So, Wyoming has 1 and California has 53.",
"The US government was designed as a system of checks and balances that are designed to prevent different forms of tyranny. For example, the Presidency is designed to prevent the tyranny possible from one group of people obtaining a legislative majority. Conversely, Congress, as a whole, is designed to prevent the tyranny that results from concentrating executive power in a single person.\n\nThe tyranny that the Senate is designed to thwart is a geographical tyranny. That is, the Senate purposely gives geographical areas with low population densities substantially more power than geographical areas with high population densities. This stops a few densely populated states from grouping together to abuse low population density states.\n\nFor example: about 50% of the US population lives in two narrow strips within 100 miles of the East and West coasts. These areas also tend to share the same interests in that their economies are dominated by high tech and the service sector. Without the Senate it would be easy for those areas to group together and promote laws that benefit them, while harming people who live in the remaining 99% of the country, where the economy tends to be reliant on farming and manufacturing.\n\nIn fact this is typically what happens in Congress - the House will favor legislation that benefits the interests of the coasts while the Senate favors legislation that benefits the interests of the interior. The result is that the two sides usually end up compromising and you rarely get legislation that disproportionately harms of benefits any particular region of the country.",
"The United States is a group of states which came together to form a union. It is not a nation divided into states.\n\nThe reason Wyoming has the same number of Senators as California is because they're both states.\n\nPretend the U.S. is negotiating with Mexico and Canada about some sort of deal or treaty. What do you think Canada and Mexico would say if the U.S. asserted that, based on population, the U.S. should get 10 votes, Canada 1, and Mexico 3. (my numbers could be off, but that's close) Do you think Canada and Mexico would agree to that, or would they insist on meeting as equals?",
"Because if they were proportional to the population, large-population states like California could effectively control the entire country and ignore anything small-population states said.\n\nThough the **House of Representatives** *does* have proportional representation like that. Both work together to make laws that are fair to the represented people and to the states themselves.",
"The way the Senate is assigned is so that each state has the same number of representatives, so each state has the same influence.\n\nThe House of Representatives is supposed to be a proportional representation of the population, but the problem is that a bill was passed in 1929 that limits the House to 435 members. Since each state needs one member, regardless of their population, it means that the representation is still skewed to penalize states with larger populations.",
"Flip that logic and you might get it. Congress has 2 parts the Senate and the House. Senate gives some power to the small states and the House to the more populace states.\n\n\nSo in the House Wyoming has one representative and the California has something like 51. This serves so that no law can pass purely because a state is so large. It needs to have support by the Senate which equally represents all states.",
"Because the people who made the government said fine half of the government is decided by what state you live in and the other half by how many other people live in the same state as you.",
"The US made a few compromises at the very beginning to match the power of the big states and the little states.\n\nSeats in the House go by population. Big states like California get more Representatives there. So California has 53 Seats.\n\nSmaller states like Wyoming get less Representatives based on their population. They have 1 Representative.\n\nBut they get 2 Senators like every other state.\n\nCalifornia is a big state. But in the Senate, she is equal to anyone else. And Wyoming only has a single representative, but they have 2 Senators like any other state.\n\nThat's why California has only 2 Senators to Wyoming's 2 Senators. Even though their populations differ. It's a trade off between the House and the Senate.",
"Senate represents the States, House represents the People.\n\nCalifornia has 2 Senators, but 53 Representatives.\n\nAlaska has 2 Senators, but one 1 Representative.",
"Senators don’t represent people, they represent states. The states are equivalent, so they get the same representation in the Senate.",
"Not all federal policies affect people equally state to state. Some policies can affect states disproportionately according to their population. The most clear cut example of this is the Supreme Court. If two states have a disagreement and sue each other the case goes directly to the Supreme Court. That's why the Senate confirms judicial appointments and not the House. Just because NY has more people than VT does not mean they should have a greater say in who ajudicates legal disputes.\n\nThere are also more subtle instances, for example if the federal government mandated upgrades to roads and told the states to fund it, large sparsely populated states could easily be required to spend more money per capita in implementing the policy.\n\nThe US is pretty unique when it comes to the power and responsibility of out states."
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2nlh6n | what would happen if the internet "turned off" for 24-hours? | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/2nlh6n/eli5_what_would_happen_if_the_internet_turned_off/ | {
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"Well, there wouldn't be any internet for that day.",
"Lots of automated systems and important devices would cease to function and the \"reboot\" would essentially cause lots of potential delays for days, maybe weeks if we're lucky. GPS for example feeds information nearly every second to any device we use daily, from street lights, airplanes, phones, satellites and various other tools we take for granted may not be used at all. Local services may still run for a bit but at limited capacity. Most of the world's money is held electronically so access to it may be limited, and stocks would crash in the event information can't be processed and sales/exchanges can't be made. While certain services can exist without internet services, the reliance on internet accessible products is very high and depending on the infrastructure of wherever you live, lots of services will go down. More examples include credit cards, emergency services that rely on GPS, access to _URL_0_, and satellite communication services like TV and radio. \n\nTL;DR Everything we take for granted will be severely limited and/or ruined and afterwards it'll take days for the internet to be fixed but the damage caused by it being out won't be as easy to fix.\n\nEDIT: grammar ",
"Do you mean the internet or all networks? Do we see this coming or is it a surprise?",
"The North Americas would be struck with massive work startages and periods of increased productivity.\n\nEdit* I think some people are taking this statement too seriously as it was meant to be more tongue-in-cheek.",
"It happened in the the early days of the public internet in Minnesota. At the time the sole connection of Minnesota to the internet was a T3 line between Minneapolis and Chicago. Some bums underneath the Washington Ave Bridge lit a bonfire that melted some very important cables, including that one (telephone service to the entire U of M was knocked out too, IRC). Took over a day to get it fixed. This was before everyone was one, so it was just the nerds like me that were freaking out. ",
"Population explosion 9 months after, no internet means no 'baiting, so all of those knuckle children that would have been discarded into kleenex may find their way into some lady parts. Bingo, bango, babies.",
"Checkout _URL_0_\n\nPredicting logistics and production chains can be very difficult. One impact of a broad 24h internet downtime will be disruptions to logistics. With a 3 day stock at any supermarket you'd likely see impacts on store shelves over the week as deliveries get out of sync and the knock-on effects cause issues.\n\nThink about the knock-on effect from weather impacts on airlines, how a short delay may cause planes to be backed up and how that has broader impacts across the system.\n\nOverall, not much from 24h.... Increase that to 3d and you'd start seeing much bigger impacts."
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4gfgp8 | what is the process for producing algae fuel? | Essentially the title. Are only certain algae capable of producing the biodiesel or can any algae do it given the correct set-up? | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/4gfgp8/eli5what_is_the_process_for_producing_algae_fuel/ | {
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"Some strains of algae have the ability to form pockets of fat inside their cells. These lipids are, just as in humans, a food reserve.\nWhen the algae is stressed by depriving it from certain nutrients it increases lipid production. The neat thing is that the algae use sunlight as energy source for producing the lipids.\nThese lipids can be harvested, broken down into fatty acids and glycerol. The glycerol can be chemically converted to bio diesel.\n\nOther algae produce methane when exposed to sunlight, and others can produce small amounts of hydrogen as a stress reaction when deprived of sulfur*\n\n*=not really sure its the right compound, long time ago :)\n",
"You know how all foods have a certain amount of fat, protein, and carbs? Algae all have different percentages of these things depending on what family they are from, and how happy they are. When algae don't eat, they get stressed out and fat. Some don't get very fat, but some do, and the ones that get very fat are the best to take for using their stored fat, in the form of oil, as fuel.\n\nSource: I study algae for a living.",
"I remember researching this a few years back starting with a small \"Grow Algae for Profit\" book and internet sources. \n\nWhen growing, parameters such as light wavelength (nanometers) and micro/macro nutrient dosage are tweaked to influence growth phases at strategic times. These phases are focused on optimizing the culture growth up to an exponential replication period, the likes of which will saturate the tank which inhibits light penetration (culture collapse).\n\nA simple press method will squeeze out the lipids and leave behind a biomass, which is nutritious for livestock feed. There are other methods but I think they involve chemicals.\n\nAs for biodiesel refinement, there are kits available on eBay that have effective pump equipment designed for that purpose. Lye is used to break up the particles in the oil (same with used vegetable oil) and there is a ratio of methanol to add in a heated pump loop in order to create diesel that can be added to a regular unmodified engine. I remember finding bulk barrels of methanol on eBay and I did the math for the ratio and current diesel cost and I think it was slightly cheaper. I think race tracks have it on hand.\n\nI planned to try this but all I've bought so far are aquarium tanks for the culture propagation. Theres a website that sells living samples of a high lipid production micro-algae species called Chlorella Vulgaris. There are other species for other products, like spirulina.\n\nOnce again, I've never done this myself, but I've spent a good chunk of time researching. Hope it helps",
"Different strain of algae have different compositions of carbohydrates (can be turned into ethanol/alcohol-like fuels) and lipids/fats (can be turned into biodiesel fuels).\n\nAlso, different strains can survive in different chemical conditions. For instance, there are a lot of issues with bacteria and other organisms contaminating the photobioreactors where the algae are grown, so some scientists are looking into finding algae that can survive very extreme (salty, or acidic, or cold, etc.) environments where most other organisms can't.\n\nThe process for turning the lipids into biodiesel is called transesterification. The triglyceride (the component that fats are made up of) is reacted with alcohol to break it down into its components - three fatty acids and a glycerol."
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qu6gd | what is a headache and why loud/annoying noises cause them. | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/qu6gd/eli5_what_is_a_headache_and_why_loudannoying/ | {
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"Loud or annoying noises don't cause headaches. It's the other way around: a headache makes you more sensitive to noise.\n\nA headache is pain in the head caused by adenosine, which is a chemical your body makes. Anything that makes cells in your head release adenosine will tend to give you a headache."
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3k2yz6 | why do i, and a lot of people, still dream about going to school and forget about a test? | I graduated from school 18 years ago and still occasionally dream about going to school and forget about a super important test. Why is that? | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/3k2yz6/eli5_why_do_i_and_a_lot_of_people_still_dream/ | {
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"I have a dream where everybody is working on a class project. They all know what they're doing and I sit there with no clue.",
"It's a fear that was never resolved, as it presumably never happened. As a result, your subconscious is stuck with trying to work out what would happen, despite your conscious knowledge that the situation will never arise again. ",
"Wait till you have the one where you are dreaming you are working on your Masters and you have failed a class twice and they only give you 3 attempts to pass it, not only that, but you have to wait a full year because the class is only taught in the fall. Not sure if I am glad or not that I didn't pursue my Masters.",
"I have recently graduated from college, I use to and still do have this re-occuring dream where I've graduated from college, but Iam still in highschool and failing all my classes, I don't know my schedule and I always end up late to a class. I always argue with the people I am with students and teachers that I don't need to be here, I have a college degree. But no one listens to me. I always wake up shaking my head like wtf glad that wasn't real..."
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22ofw8 | elia5: why do humans want to tell each other when they've done something bad? | Most of us have done something devious that we shouldn't have and feel the urge to tell someone about it afterwards. Why? Wouldn't it make more sense for us to just keep our traps shut and let life go on? | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/22ofw8/elia5_why_do_humans_want_to_tell_each_other_when/ | {
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"An innate desire to correct \"mistakes\", that is, perceived mistakes. You want to own up to your mistakes because it means that if they affect others, then they can correct for them, and the results of your actions are nullified.\n\nYou could also say we feel guilt or are looking for sympathy, it depends on the type of mistake.",
"All of the other answers I'm seeing are good, but boil down to different expressions of one thing: herd mentality.\nThe desire to be and especially feel inclusiveness is **huge** in people as a rule. Anything that threatens or undermines that security- or feels like it could- is uncomfortable to some degree.\n\nAnd being found out is as much or more of a threat than sharing... Unless you're *very* confident in how well you hid the bodies, so to speak."
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3hmvtp | why does the tsa limit liquids to 3oz? couldn't you easily create some kind of explosive out of far less than that? | Yes, I'm aware in probably on a list now. | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/3hmvtp/eli5_why_does_the_tsa_limit_liquids_to_3oz/ | {
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"The TSA is an undertrained, undermotivated agency with little practical purpose beyond presenting the illusion that the federal government cares about your safety.",
"If the TSA was interested in actually keeping people safe it would work like Israeli airport security. the TSA is there to cover the airport owners asses legally and make people feel like something is being done to combat terrorism",
"Your laptop battery contains as much energy as a grenade. If you were to breach it, the heat could melt through your window and force the plane into an emergency landing, possibly killing some of the passengers by sudden decompression.\n\nThe TSA doesn't keep us safe directly. Someone determined and clever enough to get something onto a plane can do so. What protects us is the image that they are infallible. If they can find your little bag of toiletries you forgot about, or a small bag of chips, how is anyone supposed to get things through? In addition, they give a nice, huge, shiny target to hit while all the vulnerabilities are tucked out of sight. People go to the planes normally and get caught with cleverly hidden underwear or shoe bombs, when they could just get a job as a luggage transporter and sneak something into a bag when nobody was looking.\n\nThe TSA's policies aren't particularly secure. The illusion that they are, though, can be better than a suit of armor.",
"Security theater. People hear you can make bombs out of liquids so they limit you to a somewhat arbitrary amount to make people \"feel\" safer, without actually doing a damn thing. \n\nThe reasoning is that you need a certain amount to do a certain amount of damage, but somehow don't come to the conclusion that it would be easy to get past that limit if you wanted. Well I think you can do 3, 3 ounce containers in a quart sized bag. So 9 ounces, Let's say it takes 20 ounces.. You could have 3 people do the same thing, so that's 27 ounces. But, way back in 09' they did a test with 400ml, 100ml over the limit, but as they put it 2 or 3 people could carry it on. They mixed it in a 500ml bottle that was bought in the air port. \n\n_URL_0_\n\nSo again, it's all security theater, just like the TSA is in a nutshell. \n",
"As others have said, the TSA isn't about security, it's about the appearance of security. A UK news producer reported on a new acetone peroxide \"liquid explosive\". It was really two liquids that when mixed together caused a solid explosive to precipitate from the solution. Chemistry doesn't really matter, he used two half-litre soda bottles and blew up a scrapped airplane fuselage. Fear spread, because soda bottles are sold at airport shops and folks see them on the plane all the time. Thus the TSA desired to ban them. How big of an \"liquid explosive\" could an aircraft sustain? Well, of course, it depends on the explosive. It turns out that 3-4 oz of the explosive from the video could probably not destroy a plane. Thus the 3-4 oz limit on liquids. But wait, you ask, wouldn't 3-4 oz of nitroglycerin blow it to bits? Yes, yes it would, but that's not what people were afraid of from the video, so it didn't count. Plus, there are laws against selling nitroglycerin to randoms. Remember, chemistry doesn't count. Even if you needed a lot of liquid, all you need is associates. Each can bring through 3-4 oz times the number of bottles in their baggie. With 100 friends, you can have a lot. But since liquids are not a real problem, this isn't a real increase in risk.",
"The TSA is sort of like lock on a door. Keeps the honest people out, but actual criminals will get in incredibly easy.",
"It's the illusion of security. Whats stopping someone from bringing on ceramic knives? It sucks when I can't bring my deodorant to another country. I always find that the deodorant overseas are made for hairless cats."
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1lv7jw | the health insurance portability and accountability act of 1996 (hipaa) | What are all the rules? What does this mean for consumers, for providers, and for medical record companies? | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/1lv7jw/eli5_the_health_insurance_portability_and/ | {
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"Basically, it protects your medical records from anything outside of \"TPO\", which stands for: treatment, payment, or operations. If its not another hospital or an insurance company asking for records on a \"need to know\" basis, the hospital should not release your records to anyone without written consent from you. "
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2g35vf | why is government debt and spending always compared to gdp and not to government household volume. | English is not my first language so please excuse any errors.
My question addresses reports that always compare the debts and spending of any government to the overall GDP of the country. However, the government does not have the GDP as an income. Would it not be better to compare spending and debt to the household or income of the government? After all, it greatly depends on tax rates which share of the GDP ends up at the government. Am I wrong here? Would measuring debt and spending based on the governments income not be more sensible? | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/2g35vf/eli5_why_is_government_debt_and_spending_always/ | {
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"Well, there's reasons why it's probably more relevant if one is looking at just one number to normalize government debt by GDP than by government revenues: the former reflects the fundamental state of the economy better because the latter depends on a government's particular priorities at the time and theoretically could change significantly at any time by changing tax laws.\n\nBut more to the point, it really doesn't matter that much how you normalize the data as long as you do it consistently. Any serious policy discussion is going to consider the relationships between all these variables and more anyway, and it's easiest to just normalize all economic data by GDP as there are plenty of other economic measures that aren't tied specifically to government activity."
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26x5ac | why do my earphones work perfectly fine after washing, but other electronics just break? | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/26x5ac/eli5why_do_my_earphones_work_perfectly_fine_after/ | {
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"Headphones contain: copper wires, a magnet and a small plastic wafer (among other things). Since these items can not be immediately destroyed by water, they can be dried out and used. Regular electronics have very sensitive wires, boards and other things.",
"Water conducts electricity.\n The power from a battery is put through a wire that gives a certain amount of power to whatever uses it. When water gets in there, it bypasses that wire and gives whatever uses it way more power than it can handle, frying it.\n Your headphones don't have a battery so it's fine once it dries out. No power, no frying. This is why if you take a battery out of a phone after it gets wet quickly enough, it won't break.\n",
"you can wash all electronics including phones and computers.. you just have to make sure they are dry before any electricity goes through it "
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3ape5j | what "babylon" means in rastafari culture? | I made [this](_URL_0_) meme and somebody asked what it meant. I tried to explain what Babylon was in Rastafari culture, but i didn't really have a good answer for it. I have a good idea of it, but i was wondering if anyone could shed some in-depth light on the subject. | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/3ape5j/eli5_what_babylon_means_in_rastafari_culture/ | {
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"The Jews were once held in Persia, in Babylon, as it was called at the time. This became a metaphor used in the early Christian church for.... sinful Rome holding Israel captive and often Christian in contempt.\n\nSoon, blacks in the Indies and other parts of the Americas were picking up tidbit of Christianity with their old tribal religions. Slavery and other cultural forces tried to remove these hints and histories of Africa. After WW2, these groups of Africans looked to their home continent for culture while still retaining Christian vocabulary. Babylon was not a metaphor for racial problems, or maybe more spiritually, life and its daily trials.",
"For Rastafari the Bible is one of their central books (it is an Abrahamic religion after all). In short they see [Haile Selassie](_URL_1_) as the new Messiah. Babylon in biblical terms was always a place of sin. Remeber the story of the Tower of Babel (Genesis 11) and in Revelation 17 is it called the great [Babylon the Great, the Mother of Prostitutes and Abominations of the Earth](_URL_0_). Babylon became a figure of evil. \n\nNow, in Rastafari culture everything that they consider wrong/bad gets flagged as a part of ''Babylon'' as place of sin. I think it is fair to compared to communist who call everything that is against their belief as part of the capitalist imperialist oppressor (I.e. that is their Babylon). Of hardline Republicans who see things as universal healthcare as dangerous communistic thinking (I.e. their Babylon.) \n\n**TL;DR**: ''Babylon'' means bad. "
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95phza | why do some cities not get certain restaurants? what's the decision-maker that decides what restaurant goes into a city? | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/95phza/eli5_why_do_some_cities_not_get_certain/ | {
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"Some chain resturaunts work in franchises, which means you buy the rights to build a store. The company can set very specific rules about how they want their store built, and where. They may have a limit and say that two stores must be more than 5 miles apart.\n\nOr no one is willing to buy a franchise to said store. They are very costly at first. You pay for everything.",
"Many restaurant chains like to stay regional and expand slowly (or not at all) because food service is a very hands-on industry. If In-N-Out decided they suddenly wanted 20 locations on the East Coast, they would need to build a whole new network of relationships with food and materials suppliers (or pay to get stuff shipped cross-country), scout locations in unfamiliar cities, and learn how to keep their business compliant with new local laws. In-N-Out has probably explored that possibility and decided it wouldn't be profitable (at least not compared to the expansions they're currently exploring close to home). Brand identity and company culture certainly also play a role, but don't discount plain old logistics. ",
"There is the legitimate fear of failure by over-expansion. Some chains, like Quiznos and Krispy Kreame , paid the price of overestimating their popularity. ",
"Each restaurant has different criteria to determine where to build their restaurants. For example, The Cheesecake Factory requires that a certain percentage in the area have college degrees, and that the average income is at a certain level. \n\nEach chain has their own rules, like how many people live within a certain radius of the restaurant. They don't necessarily publicize this information, so it's difficult to say what those rules are."
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25mpkt | tattoo copyrights & trademarks | I've tried Google. I've tried [reddit](_URL_0_), and I can't find an answer to something that has been bothering me. Tattoo artists work for money, i.e. they are business folk. They are making money off of designs they tattoo onto somebody. And, somehow, this is allowed for copyrighted/trademarked material without licensing. How? I cannot open a store and start offering drawings of copyrighted/trademarked material for profit without licensing. I cannot take a song sample of someone else's work and work it into mine without licensing. Hell, I used to work with a singer at a restaurant and she couldn't sing Disney songs for the kids because they weren't in the public domain (...the songs). But tattoo artists get a free pass, and I do not understand that.
The best defense I've seen is touting "derivative work", but how are my drawings *not* "interpretive"? How is the singer *not* "interpreting" Disney? If a tattoo artist can make profit off a Spiderman (Marvel now owned by Disney) tattoo without licensing, why can I not make profit off Spiderman drawings without licensing?
The other defense I've seen is "fair use", but the defenses only ever apply to the tattooee, not the tattooer. But it is the tattooer making the profit.
How is tattoo artists making profit off copyrighted/trademarked material legal without licensing? | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/25mpkt/eli5_tattoo_copyrights_trademarks/ | {
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" > How is tattoo artists making profit off copyrighted/trademarked material legal without licensing?\n\nIt isn't.\n\nAn artist who has a reference image of a trademark or copyrighted character in their window is asking for trouble.\n\nThe key is that most of them don't actively advertise the fact that they'll draw without appropriate licencing. So there is nothing that Disney etc. can specifically send them an infringement notice for. To have a case against the artist they would need someone with an infringing tattoo and sufficient evidence to show that that specific artist/studio drew the tattoo; and all of that is almost too much to bother with, even for Disney.",
"Marvel is in the business of selling drawings of Spider-Man. They want to prevent others from doing that, taking away their business. They are not however in the business of tattooing Spider-Man on people. Stopping others from doing that gains them nothing, and they lose a bit of free advertising."
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28l1yp | why doesn't the iphone turn on straight away when plugged into a charger. like the galaxy for example you can turn it on soon as it's plugged in at 0% whereas iphone needs to wait till 4% | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/28l1yp/eli5_why_doesnt_the_iphone_turn_on_straight_away/ | {
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"To prevent damage to the battery or phone. It's a precaution."
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4hj1tj | why is it inappropriate to call certain ranked officers in some parts of the us military "sir/ma'am"? | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/4hj1tj/eli5_why_is_it_inappropriate_to_call_certain/ | {
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"Only officers are addressed as \"Sir\" or \"Ma'am\".\n\nEnlisted personell are addressed by thier rank.\n\nSo you'd address them as \"Sergeant\", Sergeant Major\", etc.\n\nOfficers and Enlisted are different rank structures, where officers will always outrank enlisted. So a fresh 2nd Lieutenant with 2 weeks in service technically outranks a Sergeant Major with 15 years.",
"You might be referring to the Warrant Officer Corps. Army regulations state they are addressed as Mr. or Miss. or Mrs. \n\nThey outrank all enlisted personnel and are subordinate to all commissioned officers. ",
"20 years ago Vietnam and Korea vets would say things like,\" don't call me sir I work for a living\" which is a reference to, at least in the Army, non commissioned officers are generally seen as being much more badass and hardcore than many lower-ranking officers that they would interact with.\n\nThe officers that we had great respect for as enlisted men while in the military were the ones who either went to West Point or started as enlisted men and then moved up to be officers after completing some schooling. The majority of officers have not gone through basic training.\n\nTo them being called sir would have put them in the same group with the second lieutenants and low-ranking officers who generally made their jobs more difficult and even more dangerous.\n\nIn general if you are civilian you don't have to worry about this much. If you are in the armed forces and call an NCO sir they are likely to be offended by it.\n\nEdit: an NCO is an enlisted soldier who has reached the rank of E-5 or higher.",
"To add to what's been said, in the USMC there are Warrant Officers which are different than both Officers and Non-commissioned Officers, (enlisted).\n\nWarrant Officers should not be addressed as sir or ma'am.\n\nThat said, while in Marine boot camp you'd better dam well address ALL superiors as such.\n\n ",
"I've been admonished as a civilian for calling unlisted military, \"sir\" and I have retorted that I call everyone sir. Etiquette wise, am I incorrect to call them sir?",
"One exception to note is for basic training drill instructors, where usage varies:\n\n > Within the United States Army, drill instructors are given the title of \"Drill Sergeant\". The United States Coast Guard gives the title of \"Company Commander\" to their drill instructors. The United States Marine Corps is the only branch of the U.S. armed forces where drill instructors are titled as \"drill instructors\". **Drill instructors are referred to as \"sir\" or \"ma'am\" by recruits within the USAF, USCG (for the first few weeks of basic training, until recruits are instructed to refer to their company commanders by their proper rank), and USMC.** Within the USN, recruits must refer to their RDCs by their proper ranks. Recruits in the United States Army must refer to their drill sergeants as such: \"drill sergeant\".",
"Retired Army Warrant Officer here (CW3). I could be called \"Sir\" but I hated it. My troops could call me \"Mr.\" or \"Chief\". If they called me \"Sir\", they were doing push-ups. ",
"I think what he means is when we are told ( at least I was taught USMC) to respond to generals as Yes General no General not Yes Sir no Sir. it's to remind them that they aaaaaare generals so they don't forget. either that or to rub our noses in it.",
"I was a Sgt, so it was a bit strange when I got out and everyone was now calling me \"Sir\". I had to fight the impulse to respond with, \"Don't call me sir, I work for a living.\"",
"you may also be confused by the term \"non-commissioned officer.\" And NCO is a sergeant and you don't call them sir or ma'am. ",
"Coast guard veteran here. Commissioned officers O-6 and above were addressed by their rank. Officers below that rank were addressed by either their rank, \"Mr.\"(followed by their names),or \"sir\". Warrant officers were addressed as sir or \"Mr\". I can't say the exact reason the tradition has evolved that way, but it's the way things are after hundreds of years. Maybe there's something in my bluejackets manual, but that's in a box somewhere. "
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zs79y | why can't cell phone antennas support all bands in the same chip? | A few months ago I lost my iPhone 4 and got a cheapass Samsung Galaxy Y as a replacement. 3G wasn't working and I wondered why. Turns out I got the model with a 900 Mhz-compatible HSPA chip instead of the model with the 850 Mhz-compatible chip I should have got for my provider. I had to live with EDGE for several weeks due to the small 50 Mhz difference between the bands.
Today I was reminded of the same issue. Here in Norway we have perfect LTE floating all around us (in the 2600 Mhz band), yet we hardly can use it except for a couple of special models and USB-adapters for our computers. The iPhone 5 looked promising, but it still remains just a 3G phone for most Europeans with LTE access.
Why can't a antenna chip simply support all the bands? Or atleast - how can an antenna chip support 700Mhz and 2100Mhz, but not the bands in between? | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/zs79y/eli5_why_cant_cell_phone_antennas_support_all/ | {
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"The cell phone is trying to pick up a *very* weak signal. The circuit that picks up the radio wave that is used to transmit the phone call information has to be \"tuned\" to that particular frequency so that it will resonate with it. It's kind of like making a tuning fork; it's very hard to get one that will resonate well with two different frequencies (unless they are multiples of each other). \n \nIn order for a phone to work with multiple carrier frequencies, it has to have multiple tuned circuits. This is certainly do-able, but it costs a bit more to make. And of course, if you get a subsidized phone from a particular carrier, they don't want to pay to support frequencies that they don't use. And the carriers want to keep the phones as cheap as they possibly can, since they don't make money on the phones themselves, they lose money on them. \n \nThere are also other considerations. The \"modulation scheme\" is the way the radio carrier is rapidly varied to convey the digital information, and there are several different ones. Those generally also need some dedicated circuitry. And on top of the analog-to-digital modulation scheme are other layers of purely digital protocol that can vary. It is possible to pack several schemes into one chipset, but it is also more expensive. \n \nTL;DR - It costs more, and there's no incentive for the phone providers to do it. "
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1rhdqj | why is disney considered an evil corporation? | I've heard people mention this before but they never explain why. | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/1rhdqj/eli5_why_is_disney_considered_an_evil_corporation/ | {
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"The power of Disney stretch farther than one would think, (i.e.ESPN & ABC), and Walt may have been anti-semitic. Plus it's fun to imagine the \"happiest place/corporation on earth\" as a secretly dark entity.",
"One of the big reasons I'm aware of is in the [copyright extension](_URL_0_) they lobbied heavily for in the late 1990s.\n\nThis raised—and continues to raise—questions regarding authorship and the value of the public domain."
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e1l1ig | why does zyrtec make you drowsy even though its a second generation anti-histamine? | Can anyone explain the mechanics and how it interacts with your brain? | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/e1l1ig/eli5_why_does_zyrtec_make_you_drowsy_even_though/ | {
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"Does it? I haven't found it to make me drowsy, and there isn't a warning on the label about operating heavy machinery or whatever.",
"My anatomy teacher taught us this the other day. A histamine is a neurotransmitter involved in arousal and attention. This arousal response can directly cause an allergy response as the molecule is an excitatory type and responds to foreign particles such as dust and dander. Anti-histamines such as Walzyr or Zyrtec serve to block these histamine receptors.\nAs such, their excitatory roles become inhibited leading to drowsiness.",
"In my experience Zyrtec is one of the softest, didn't ever have a problem with it even when drinking, whereas with polaramine that's another story.",
"The problem comes from the fact that the histamine receptor (H1) targeted decreases allergic reactions and also causes one to feel less alert. \n\nI think it’s generally accepted that you can’t stop allergic reactions without this side effect. There have been lots of attempts, and you can basically draw a line on a graph showing that drowsiness and drug effectiveness are hand in hand. The least drowsy drugs are also the least effective. \n\nTake Benadryl for example. Makes me fall asleep! But it’s very effective in stopping allergy symptoms. \n\nOn the other hand, Claritin is one of the least effective drugs and it doesn’t cause much drowsiness. \n\nChoose your position. Taking my Benadryl with an espresso today...",
"Definitely an individual response. I get extremely dizzy if I take Zyrtec. Like my head is a balloon attached my a string. I cannot take it.",
"It's not a medicine that's even drowsy in the majority of people.\n\nYou're in the minority of this side effect OP",
"More of an ELI10 - Generally in the body, histamine is released in response to an allergen and is involved in the subsequent inflammatory response (what we know as \"allergies\"). In the brain, however, some of the neurons that are involved with wakefulness, also respond to histamine to keep us awake (histaminergic neurons). When we block histamine in the brain, they're less active, hence we get sleepy.\n\nWe generally divide anti-histamine drugs by their selectivity. 1st gen drugs (ex. Benedryl) are rather nonselective and act on both histamine receptors in the brain (making us sleepy) and in the periphery (damping the allergic response). 2nd gen drugs (ex. Clarithin, Allergra, Zyrtec, etc.) are more selective for the peripheral receptors and less so the central ones in the brain.\n\n**The answer to your title question:** in reality, the division is not as black and white, rather more of a spectrum. Some 2nd-gen antihistamines have more central effect on the brain than others.",
"It can still make you drowsy, it’s just more selective for peripheral H1 receptors than 1st gen antihistamines.",
"Which one is Zyrtec? I wish people would say the drug name rather than the brand name...",
"There are 3 places in you body that histamine affects: the acid in your stomach, your allergic reactions throughout your body, and in your brain. Stuff like Prilosec is actually an antihistamine, but it only affects the ones in your stomach because its easy to introduce medication right into your stomach. However for an antihistimine to get to your skin/eye/sinuses from your mouth it has to go by blood, which means it goes everywhere blood goes including your brain. If its blocking histamine in your sinuses, its also blocking it in your brain, which makes you sleepy. The 2nd gen ones are more selective, but they'll still have some side effects.",
"I haven't seen anyone mention the [blood-brain barrier](_URL_0_) which essentially filters what reaches the brain.\n\nAnti-histamines like cetirizine (zirtec) only minimally cross the blood-brain barrier, whereas first-generation drugs cross it very easily, and so more reliably make people sleepy. But the BBB isn't the same for everyone, so some drugs will cross more easily in some people than others.\n\nIn general, any drug that crosses the BBB either increases wakefulness or increases sleepiness. It's also the usual answer as to 'why does this drug make me feel very sleepy / wakeful / happy / sad?' - because it crosses the BBB. This can then lead into a conversation about ionization and polarity, but only if you know a really interesting anaesthetist.",
"Of the popular 2nd gen anti histamines, it crosses the BBB the most. Or so an old pediatrician told me. I haven't read about the pharmacology enough to fact check him."
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10k8ya | beer bellies. | I've heard some things recently about beer not actually giving you a beer belly. I drink a ***lot*** of beer regularly and have a beer belly. I assumed this made sense until I started hearing these things.
If beer does cause beer belly, then why does it all go into the belly? Why is it that people who eat tonnes of food get fat all over, whereas myself, who drinks tonnes of beer, only get a fat belly? | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/10k8ya/eli5_beer_bellies/ | {
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"It's called a \"Beer Belly\" because it's associated with people who drink a lot of beer. Think about your drinking habit. Do you have a single beer and then go on about your day? Probably not.\n\nAdults tend to have a beer and then follow it up with 6 more. This is because drinking is super fun and beer is super delicious. Beer is full of calories, about 150+. If you consume 8 beers thats like 1200+ calories on top of your breakfast lunch and dinner. That's a lot of calories. Old people can't use all those calories up so the body stores them as fat. It's not just beer that causes a belly. If a 40 year old with a slowed metabolism and a crappy exercise regimen drank 8 sodas a night and then passed out he or she would probably develop a soda belly. \n\nAs for why it's in your belly? Men and women store fat differently, women in their entire body (poor things) and men mostly in their guts. \n\nBut you are 5 and probably have a pretty decent metabolism. Just don't go drinking 10 ecto coolers before bed time and exercise regularly and you'll be just fine.",
"There have been several scientific studies done with results that have shown that the amount of beer that you drink has very little to do with having a beer belly. As long as you have a relatively healthy lifestyle (eat healthy, get regular exercise, etc.) the amount of beer you drink doesnt impact your weight all that much. A male getting a beer belly instead of getting fat all around has more to do with genetics than regular consumption of beer.\n\nSource: _URL_2_\n\n_URL_1_\n\n_URL_0_"
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"http://www.nature.com/ejcn/journal/v57/n10/full/1601678a.html"
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3zx0hf | how come some people get rich during stock market crisis? | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/3zx0hf/eli5_how_come_some_people_get_rich_during_stock/ | {
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"You can short sell stocks, which means that you borrow stock from someone who owns it, sell it on the market at the going rate, keep the cash, hope the stock falls in price, buy the stock back, and return it to the original owner. \n\nIf the price does fall, then you'll be selling stock you don't own for a high price and buying it back to cover your debt at a lower price for a profit.\n\nThere are probably other ways to profitably trade in a falling market too.",
"Here are a few ways:\n\n* Put options: You see a $10 stock. You think the price will fall. You pay me $1 for the right, but not the obligation to sell the stock. If the price drops to $5, you can buy the stock for $5, but still sell me the stock for $10. When you subtract the dollar you paid me, that is $4 in profit. If the stock rises to $15, you don't have to buy or sell the stock, but you lose the $1 you gave me.\n\n* Futures contracts: You own a $10 stock. You think the price will fall. I think it will rise. You agree to sell me the stock in 1 year for $10, no matter what. If the price drops to $5, then you can still sell it to me for $10 and make $5. If the price goes up to $15, you lose $5.\n\n* Short selling: You borrow a $10 stock from me. You sell it. Then the price drops to $5. You buy it back and return it to me. You make $5. If it rises to $15, you lose $5. If it rises to $1000, you lose $990. \n\n* Inverse exchange traded funds: You buy a stock in a fund designed to bet against an exchanged traded fund like the S & P 500. These funds use the techniques I described above to bet against a particular group of companies. If the 500 biggest companies in America lose money, your stock will rise in value. The advantage is that most you can lose is the amount you paid for the inverse ETF. Short selling has potentially unlimited losses."
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2zhbl5 | why do some people hate being in photos? | Never fully understood this- any suggestions /ideas? | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/2zhbl5/eli5_why_do_some_people_hate_being_in_photos/ | {
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"Cause they have low self-esteem / confidence and feel ugly in said photo.",
"I don't like being in photos, not the best looking guy don't like the way I look. That being said - that's not my biggest issue with having pictures taken. For starters; people take waaaay too many pictures and it's tiresome; you look like an idiot with a selfie stick; I feel awkward posing for an indiscriminate amount of time with a fake smile in a unnatural pose and my biggest problem is, instead of living in the moment, you're stopping and posing for a picture ie. People with their backs turned to the bellagio fountains instead of watching, enjoying and experiencing them.\nAlso native Americans believe it steals your soul"
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2b7hy5 | why dont all movies go to the theatres? why decides they'll go right to dvd? | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/2b7hy5/eli5_why_dont_all_movies_go_to_the_theatres_why/ | {
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"The distributor will make a determination on that based on the quality of the movie, and they market at the time. Many movies are destined for DVD from the outset. Some may go straight to DVD based on what that studio and others have released at that time.\n\nThe movie studios have to keep the exhibitors (that is, your local movie theater) happy. And that means providing movies that fill the theaters with people who will purchase popcorn, candy and sodas. If a movie won't fill many seats, then even if they get some theaters to show the movie, it won't last past the first week.\n\nWhen a movie is sent to theaters, the distributors spend a lot of money on advertising. It's much more expensive to market a movie in theaters than it is to market a direct-to-dvd film. So, when they send a movie to the theaters, they have to back it up with a lot of money for advertising, so they don't want something that the theater owners will yank out after a short time.",
"Because they're bad, usually. Putting something in a theater requires movie theaters willing to gamble on your movie, and as theaters make such a tiny cut of the profits, they're very risk-averse. So often sequels that will have a rabid fanbase but no widespread support will go straight to video, where the margins are a little more forgiving, and the studio can still recoup some of their losses for such a bad product.",
"There are some fairly substantial marketing costs associated with releasing a movie in theaters--TV ads, internet ads, print ads, that sort of thing. These can be in the tens of millions of dollars. \n\nBefore the studio commits to spending that kind of money, they hold test screenings of the movie--basically they fill a theater with people who get to watch a free movie in exchange for answering questions afterwards. If these people hate the movie and the studio can't think of an affordable way to fix it, they won't spend the money on marketing. The idea is that they don't want to increase the losses they've already incurred by financing the movie in the first place.\n\nAlso, as other people have pointed out, a lot of times the movie is made with the idea that it will go straight to video--a lot of horror sequels are like this. It's known from the outset that the fixed costs of a print/TV ad campaign could never be recouped in theaters because not enough people have interest in the movie. However, the relatively small cost of producing a low budget horror movie (Phantasm III / IV springs to mind) might well be covered if there are enough horror nerds willing to shell out for the PPV or buy the disc or whatever."
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2gq1qi | why do subreddits need mods? isn't the point of reddit that content is either voted up or down by all the users? | I seriously want the answer to this. With all the mod drama that goes on, I've always wondered why mods are even needed on a website that is suppose to be run by the votes of users. Having that extra layer seems unnecessary. | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/2gq1qi/eli5_why_do_subreddits_need_mods_isnt_the_point/ | {
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"Often times a subreddit has rules that go against what the average user will vote on. Before a subreddit hits \"eternal september\" (a point at which there are too many new users each day for the existing users to train how to behave), it could absolutely exist without moderation. But for a subreddit like ELI5, where thousands of new users join each day, there are *many* who don't know the rules that have been put out by the moderators, and even more who don't follow them.\n\nImagine /r/AskScience without any moderators. It would have turned into /r/AskReddit very quickly. Jokes everywhere and very few legitimate scientific claims.\n\nThere are also instances where users dox (release personal information) each other. In this case the moderators will be quicker to react and delete the post than admins could."
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euv6o7 | why do the back wheels of a cart go over a bump easier than the front wheels? | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/euv6o7/eli5_why_do_the_back_wheels_of_a_cart_go_over_a/ | {
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"Leverage. When the front wheels of a cart go up, the cart turns into a lever and the front wheels want to go up and back. Whereas the back wheels go up and forward because the cart is pivoting on the front wheels. \n\nSo pushing the back wheels of a cart up a bump is also pushing it forward."
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cd2xr7 | what’s the difference between white smoke and black smoke? | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/cd2xr7/eli5_whats_the_difference_between_white_smoke_and/ | {
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"White smoke can often mean material is off-gassing moisture and water vapor, meaning the fire is just starting to consume material. White smoke can also indicate light and flashy fuels such as grass or twigs. Thick, black smoke indicates heavy fuels that are not being fully consumed.",
"What the smoke is made up of. Black smoke (cars, black powder guns) is carbon-rich, giving it that coloring.",
"When it comes to burning buildings or houses where you can only see the smoke, you can indicate if the fire is still there or not anymore.if the smoke is white, thr fire is done...if the smoke is black, it is continuously burning.",
"White smoke often contains condensing vapors, such as water or unburned fuel.\n\nBlack smoke contains soot, which is mainly carbon, in various forms. It indicates inefficiency in burning, usually because the fuel to oxygen ratio is too rich.",
"White smoke means the Roman Catholic Church has elected a new pope. Black smoke means their latest vote failed to find a winner, so the conclave will keep voting.",
"This can be demonstrated by watching the smoke while starting up an old diesel motor with no glow plugs.\n\nFirst white smoke while cranking but before the motor has started - heated fuel is boiling off but not burning. The white smoke is diesel \"steam\". In a wood fire, it is \"wood steam\", all of the light chemicals boiling off but not catching fire.\n\nThen comes black smoke as the motor catches and burns rich. The black smoke is carbon particles from having too much fuel and not enough air to burn them completely. \n\nThen the exhaust clears up as the motor warms and reaches equilibrium, and the fuel is burning completely to CO2 and H2O."
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3p242j | what's the point of a hov lane? why not just let everyone use it to prevent traffic backups? | There's a lot of highways around here that are 3 lanes wide, with one being a hov lane, that you have to pay for, why not just open that lane to everyone and have 33% more road for drivers? | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/3p242j/eli5_whats_the_point_of_a_hov_lane_why_not_just/ | {
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"It's to provide an incentive for people to carpool. If more people had 2-3 passengers in their cars, that would make the regular lanes less congested.",
"1. Because you would have 50% more. \n\n2. The point of the HOV lane is to encourage ride sharing so there are fewer cars on the road, and less use of resources. The traffic-free HOV lane is the prize you get if you take part. \n\nI'm not saying that I 100% think this is a great idea that always achieves the desired effect. But that is the reasoning. ",
"You pay to use your HOV lane? I know California is making HOV lanes premium lanes, but I have never heard of paying to use a regular HOV lane. As for why it's restricted, it's to incentivize people, if 4 individuals carpooled, that's 3 less cars on the road, mumtiply that by 100 and that's 300 less cars. "
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2raj77 | what does goldman sachs have to do with the eurozone and why do they seem to be such a big player in it? | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/2raj77/eli5_what_does_goldman_sachs_have_to_do_with_the/ | {
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"Last I checked, an ex Goldman Sachs employee ran the European Central bank. So that's fairly significant.",
"Basically, Goldman Sachs helped to mask greeces debt.\n\n_URL_0_",
"Goldam Sachs are big investment bank. So they have investments in multiple countries in Europe, The problem with Europe is most countries have serious debts / or need money to run the country. So they use Banks like Goldam Sachs to borrow money which cause them to have power! Money = power in politics :)",
"Goldman Sachs is known for its deep connections to politics. This is true not just in Europe, but very much in the United States as well. Many powerful decision makers have been employed by Goldman Sachs.\n\nIt may also be that Goldman Sachs have a strategy of working with governments. Since they are probably the worlds largest investment bank, they may be able to do some deals (loans to governments) that are to large for other banks.\n\nThat said, I'm not sure that Goldman Sachs really is such a 'big player' in the Eurozone, it is after all an American investment bank. Large European investment banks, like Credit Suisse, Deutsche Bank or BNP Paribas may very well be bigger players in the Eurozone specifically.\n\nIt is possible Goldman Sachs have received more attention just because they are from outside of Europe, are the biggest and are previously known for shady deals."
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3inl4f | why does putting a spoon in the top of a bottle champagne, bear ect. keep the fiz in the bottle even over night | a friend told me about this. it worked. and now im just confused and have more questions than i thought i would have for asking how to keep a beer from going flat. | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/3inl4f/eli5why_does_putting_a_spoon_in_the_top_of_a/ | {
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"It doesn't. Sparkling wine keeps its fizz for longer than most people realise so the spoon trick appears to work even though it has no effect b",
"1. The spoon in champagne theory has not really been confirmed scientifically.\n2. To keep a beer from going flat you should drink it faster!"
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47k2x0 | are there accounting and investor-related benefits to hiring contractors instead of employees? | Not interested in the employee cost savings, which has been covered in previous posts. But more the accounting and investing reporting reasons why having less headcount and more contractors would be beneficial to a large company. | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/47k2x0/eli5_are_there_accounting_and_investorrelated/ | {
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"Depending how contractors are paid, there could be a cash flow benefit. Most employees expect regular payments. Many contacts are set up in such a way that much of the payment is deferred to the completion date. "
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[]
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|
4gvvp9 | can blind people see light? | I mean... when you look at the sun, you look away because it is too bright. Do blind people have the same reaction as well? | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/4gvvp9/eli5can_blind_people_see_light/ | {
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"It depends on how blind they are (there are degrees of blindness). Some people can see light/dark or shadows, some can see certain areas of their vision but not others, some can't see anything at all, so the answer is both yes and no."
]
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721ywa | how can a cable possibly be stretched across the entire atlantic ocean? | [deleted] | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/721ywa/eli5_how_can_a_cable_possibly_be_stretched_across/ | {
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"Very long cables, carried out on large vessels. They lay on the ocean floor where they dont see too much marine life. Even so, they have a thick casing to guard against animal curiousity. ",
"Undersea cables are large and very well protected from the elements. Animals aren't a major concern. The ocean is miles deep, but that isn't really a problem. Cables aren't placed by divers or submarines, their unspooled off the back of a big ship.",
"Its really long and sits on the bottom. Its pretty well protected and its uninteresting to animals. They're as inclined to destroy it as the Titanic, its just an uninteresting hunk on the bottom.\n\nThe cable isn't really *stretched* across the Atlantic, its just laid out on the ocean floor by a ship with a really really long spool of special cable",
"Neal Stephenson wrote a cool article about the internet infrastructure that included a big section on putting down an ocean cable: _URL_0_\n\nSearch for \"ocean\" and it was the second hit that was in the section of interest, I think. The whole thing is very interesting, but long :)\n"
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4fonzq | the uk investigatory powers bill | What exactly is it? And how exactly does it affect technology users in the UK? | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/4fonzq/eli5the_uk_investigatory_powers_bill/ | {
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"It's a bill to allow the government to retain the browsing history of everybody in the UK for at least a year, without suspicion or probable cause.\n\nIt's being championed by Theresa May, someone who is demonstrably incompetent and also the queen mother of godawful, totalitarian-sounding legislation. The sweeping powers she's gunning for are completely disproportionate to the threat they're intended to counter, and according to privacy experts will actually make it *harder* for the authorities to pursue useful leads, by making the haystack in which they are searching for needles orders of magnitude larger. She even defended the principle of making the haystack bigger.\n\nNeedless to say the whole thing is draconian and creepy, and even if it isn't really being used to monitor dissent and anti-government sentiment, there's no saying that it won't ultimately be used for that, as frequently happens with these kinds of powers.\n\nIncidentally, Theresa May and Satan have never been seen together in the same room.\n\nEdit: snarkification"
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5b2bpj | why do we consider electric cars "green" if we need fossil fuel to produce electricity ? | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/5b2bpj/eli5_why_do_we_consider_electric_cars_green_if_we/ | {
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"There are other ways to produce electricity - solar, wind, hydro, nuclear.\n\nAdditionally, even fossil-fuel power plants are more efficient than an internal combustion engine, and they also produce less polluting gasses (relative to the amount of energy they produce).",
"The electric vehicles are considered 'green' because they have no emissions. The problem relies in how electricity is produced, not the car. Many countries have already achieved > 90% renewable electricity.",
"Right now tehnically there is a conflict like you said, but as many more countries implmement renewable energy initiatives before long there won't be any conflict anymore cause the energy source will be green as well. Also Elon Musk is in the solar power industry and they are planning to integrate that technology to Tesla which will accelerate the \"green-ness\" of their electric cars, hopefully others will follow.",
"Because big electrical generation plants are better at burning fuel for power than cars are.\nThey have special machines to get every bit of energy from the fuel where as a car has a small engine that has to be portable and wastes lots of the energy ",
"They are marketed as \"green\" because they do not directly produce greenhouse gasses. If, however, you live in an area that uses fossil fuels to produce electricity then the electric car isn't really as \"green\" as advertised as it is still burning its fair share of carbon fuel, just through secondary means.\n\nA more troubling aspect of electric cars are the rare elements required to construct them. The mining and processing of these rare elements can be very destructive to the environment.\n\nI think electric cars are better for the environment, overall, compared to traditional combustion vehicles, but there is a fair amount of miss information surrounding the electric car fad.",
"Gas powered vehicles roam around, emitting pollution all over. This is called \"non-point source pollution.\" Coal-fired electric plants are in one place, and the towers that emit vapor have \"scrubbers\" that scrub the air, much like the cabin air filter in your car or the air filter for your HVAC system in your house. It is much easier and more efficient to control air emissions at one point than many, especially mobile sources. Therefore, regardless if the electricity comes from a renewable source (wind, solar) or a non-renewable source (coal, natural gas), there are zero emissions from cars driving all around. Therefore, electric cars are \"greener\" than cars powered by fossil fuels since the pollution source is in one place (point-source emission) instead of multiple places (non-point source pollution)."
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qmg6j | why the prices of milk are like this (pic inside) | At my local Walmart, the prices of milk have been weird for the last 3 months. It used to be for 2% milk, the prices for gallons and half gallons were [$2.43 for a half gallon, and $2.39 for a full gallon.](_URL_1_) At first I thought something along the lines of "Well, they must have gotten a lot more full gallons in this shipment and are trying to push them out before they go bad." This was also accompanied by the fact that 1% milk and whole milk were normal (Relatively-- the gallon was about 7 and 14 cents, respectively, higher than their half gallon counterparts). But the price stayed at that point for **three months**.
Today, I go to Walmart for milk and find this: [$2.36 for half gallon, $1.99 for full gallon.](_URL_0_) Crazy! And to top it off, the prices for 1% and whole milk have gone this way as well (With the full gallon being lower priced than the half). Why are they priced this way? If it matters, this Walmart I go to is in a very low-income area, maybe there's governmental incentives at play? What's going on here?
EDIT: This isn't about paying less per unit for items in bulk. That's understandable and common. This is about **paying more money for less product**. | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/qmg6j/eli5_why_the_prices_of_milk_are_like_this_pic/ | {
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"Relate it to Coke bottles:\n20oz bottle: $1.50\n-Easy to carry and drink quickly\n-Fit in cup holders\n-Convenient\n-Good for on the go\n\n68oz (2liters): $1.09\n-Large, bulky\n-Unconventional for casual drinking\n-Better for taking home\nBoth of the bottles have the same product, but the have different markets, or who they are selling to. \n\nSame goes for milk, the smaller milk is better for a person who isn't looking to get a lot of milk, while the larger milk is probably for a family that consumes a generous amount of milk per week. \nRemember, things are cheaper in bulk, the more you buy, the less you pay per item. \n",
"That's some cheap fucking milk",
"Did you look at the expiration date? \n\nThe $1.99 milk was probably about a couple days before expiring. So they knocked the price down. Which entices people to buy it up. Because if they put a \"Sale\" sticker on dairy....people would automatically know \"ew, that milk is old. I'm not buying it.\" But without the sale sicker then they think \"fuck yeah, there must have been too much made so it's cheap.\"\n\nThis is what my local chain grocery store does.",
"My guess is that enough people will actually pay extra for the smaller, more-conveniently-sized container. Yeah, you would pay less for the larger container (not just per ounce, but for the whole thing), but maybe you just don't want that larger container for whatever reason - because it's too big for your dorm room fridge or you just want some for lunch and you don't want to deal with a \"giant\" gallon jug, etc.\n\nI am not explaining from experience, by the way. I would totally not be able to pay the greater price for the smaller volume (it would just feel so wrong), but I can see how some people might. I can even see how there might be enough such people that the supply demand equation would make the prices go the way they appear to have gone in the OP's description."
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40cp4o | what does "safely remove hardware and eject media" do to make it "safe"? | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/40cp4o/eli5_what_does_safely_remove_hardware_and_eject/ | {
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"It prevents the computer from trying to write to the media while it is being physically removed. If it's removed while the computer it trying to write to it, it can damage all the data on the disc.",
"Some applications are constantly producing data that they write to a file. If one of those is running then you tell it to stop what it was doing so that you don't get a half-written file.\n\nAlso, writing to a file is a fairly expensive operation, so many programs will save up data and then write it all at once. This minimizes the overhead of writing to the file. \"Safely Remove\" tells these programs to go ahead and write whatever they've saved up.\n\nFinally, many drives have a bit of really fast memory so that when a program *does* decide to write to the drive they can just transfer the data to that memory and then the drive can sit there and slowly transfer it to the actual long-term storage memory on the device (the really fast stuff needs constant power to remember what it's storing). \"Safely Remove\" waits for this memory to all be written to the long-term memory of the drive.\n\nIn many cases \"Safely Remove\" won't actually be able to tell all the programs to finish what they're doing, but it can at least tell you that there are still things using the drive so that you don't pull it out and wind up with half-written files corrupting the drive. ",
"To bring this back to ELI5's real roots, here's an analogy: Pretend you're a 5 year old coloring a picture of an adorable kitty. Now you mother comes over and grabs the paper and pulls it, while you were still coloring. The crayon is still in your hand, and still touching the paper, so if she pulls hard, it'll make a line that totally ruins your artistic vision.\n The \"safely remove\" feature just tells the computer to wait until there's no coloring going on before yanking the paper away.\n"
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3scj0j | what is end-to-end encryption that everybody is talking about with regards to the uk and how does passing that bill to end it effectively be a bad thing? | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/3scj0j/eli5_what_is_endtoend_encryption_that_everybody/ | {
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"End to end encryption means that the data get encrypted before it is ever transmitted, and not decrypted until after it is received on the other end. This is the only way to guarantee that it's protected from somebody listening in somewhere in between. \n\nThe UK government would very much like to listen in to peoples' conversations. People who believe in privacy would very much like to prevent that. "
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5xw0af | if transubstantiation means the body of christ is being eaten, doesn't that mean it's cannibalism? | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/5xw0af/eli5_if_transubstantiation_means_the_body_of/ | {
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"Not exactly. Denominations that believe in transubstantiation also don't think that Christ was merely human, but in fact the son of God. This includes the belief that he is *consubstantial*, that is, made of the same essence, as God the father. The typical idea of cannibalism doesn't really apply to that situation."
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eyh4z4 | why, in todays high tech age, do we still use film stock and lenses for movies and pictures, when it could all be done on a computer? | People spend tens of thousands on anamorphic lenses and such, when you could just film in 4K, add a lens flair filter, and crop it to desired ratio. Clearly im missing something | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/eyh4z4/eli5_why_in_todays_high_tech_age_do_we_still_use/ | {
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"Many people feel that using traditional filming methods makes the movies look better, as they prefer the way images appear when filming on film stock rather than going digital. Enough directors and cinematographers feel that way that a decent amount of films are done on film stock even today, despite it being more expensive.",
"For the same reason professional musicians record onto tape; film and tape actually have practically infinite resolution, whereas converting recorded information into the digital realm is always limited by the current technology’s resolution capabilities, thus there’s is always something lost. \n\nSome might argue that what is lost in high end digital is imperceptible to the human senses, but others argue that there’s just a “certain something” that happens with film and tape that can’t be reproduced digitally for this very reason.",
"Despite the standard of digital sensors, film still has the advantage in some areas. You can massively over-expose film and still see some details, where digital will just give you solid whites. It's the other way around at the dark end. Some people still prefer film.\n\nBut you talk about lenses too! Those are used for both film and digital sensors. I don't see an alternative unless you're proposing rendering everything with CGI. Good as computer rendering is today, it's still not on the level of real-world footage. More to the point, it's massively more expensive.\n\nYes, I wish they'd dump anamorphic lenses for everything. Not only is all the flare and bokeh weird, but they breathe in such a strange way, with focus pulls causing the aspect ratio to change.",
"Lenses and film are two separate issues.\n\nI am no sure of the exact difference between the quality of capturing on film and digital and what advantages there are. But for expensive lenses, there is a huge difference\n\nIf you capture an image with a regular lens and an anamorphic the bokeh is quite different. The bokeh is how out of focus stuff looks. An out of focus light on a regular lens is circular but on anamorphic the are oval. [Compare it here](_URL_2_). \nThere is no easy way to convert the captured images or videos between the two. You could create a completely CGI background with either but that is expensive so \"tens of thousands on anamorphic lens\" might the cheapest way to get the effect. So capturing real light in the camera just like you like it to be on screen with expensive equipment might be the cheapest option.\n\nFor other stuff, your film with large lenses and you can get shallow depth of filed and another effect directly in the camera instead of expensive or complex post-processing. There is a reason cellphone try to add this in the portate modes for images with complex software.\n\nThe different focal length of a camera has a huge effect on how stuff looks. [Look at this image](_URL_1_) that how stuff gets distorted of flattened out at 16 to 200mm lenses and the amount of background captured and how the depth of field changes and take it out of focus. The framing and distortion is nothing you can change in a computer or at least not at a cost lower to capture it directly. The depth of field is simple but not something you prefect on a movie today with automatic software.\n\nSo a lens might cost a lot of money but people that operate computers cost money too. Capturing the intention of the director directly in-camera will cost less at least regarding lenses. For a movie, tens of thousands are nothing when it cost tens millions, it is 1/1000 of the budget to make so get the right shoot directly will cost a lot less the for example \n\n & #x200B;\n\nLook at [This](_URL_0_) for a breakdown of the cost for Annie (2014) with a total cost of $73 million where the, the production cost of $34 M and shoot 23 September 2013 - 13 December 2013 (according to IMDB). That is 11 weeks and 4 days. So 81 days if all are used or 59 if you work 5-day a week. The length of the recording days are long but let's use 8 and 12 hours \n\nFor 59 day and 8 hours a day, it cots $ 72 000 per hour \nFor 81 day and 12 hours per day, it cost $34 000 per hour.\n\nSo regardless of you calculate it you get production cost of tens of thousands per hour so if the correct equipment can capture it directly or just a bit faster it will pay for itself."
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2rdeen | why doesn't one horse equal one horsepower? | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/2rdeen/eli5_why_doesnt_one_horse_equal_one_horsepower/ | {
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"Because horses are not mass-produced at standardized specifications.\n\nIt's the same reason your foot isn't one foot long.",
"Watt (Yeah, that Watt) measured that a brewery horse could pull 32,400 foot pounds per minute, and then later simply standardized it to 33,000. That is *mechanical horsepower*, and is equivalent of 745.7 watts. What you are odds are used to is just regular horsepower, such as on Electric Motors. This is equal to 746 watts. Now, why do they differ:\n\nWhat work a horse can do changes from horse to horse, and from time to time. Consistently, a horse can do one horsepower, but peak over a short time as much as 14.9. So it is pretty much just standardization that did it. It is average work, not maximum or minimum.\n\nSource: My wonderful friend _URL_0_"
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6skosl | outside of academia, who employs modern philosophers and what is their role in modern society? | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/6skosl/eli5outside_of_academia_who_employs_modern/ | {
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"I'd say lots of them write books and/or articles and essays which they sell to magazines or even get invited to tv talk shows to discuss things. A philosopher or public intellectual can also rely on making a show of his/her own on youtube and monetize on that. But I think books and generally written stuff is the main source of income.\n\nWhich ones do you have in mind?",
"I'm sure some more will come to mind soon, but the first one I thought of: Ethicists. When a company or corporation needs to go through an ethics committee, those people are philosophers. Similarly, before doing any experiments (e.g. in science) you also need to get ethics clearance. Ethics is a big domain of philosophy.\n\nEdited to add: Also, I know this is kinda covered by \"academia\", but the main thing that philosophers do is write papers for publication. Whether it's in ethics, metaphysics, aesthetics, philosophy of science, stuff about personal identity or time travel or whatever. Philosophers are the ones researching and writing about it! \n\n(Source: am married to a philosopher).",
"Two that haven't been mentioned: \nComputer science - Computers are, at the basic level, logic machines. Logic is one of the four original branches of philosophy. The best computer programmers use careful logical reasoning to solve problems in the most efficient way possible, then convert that reasoning into logic-based coding. Aristotle would've been proud. \nJudge/lawyer - Law and philosophy have a close relationship, and philosophy is one of the most common pre-law school majors. In many ways law is basically applied ethics and political/social philosphy. \n\n",
"**Copy-pasting my response to this question from a previous [ELI5] (_URL_0_)**\n\n\n > Let me start with this: my undergrad is Philosophy.\n\n > Today: Lets make a distinction between Philosophers - people who DO philosophy for a living - and philosophy students - people who use the general tenets gained by in-depth study of philosophy in their day-to-day jobs. Philosophers, those who do, tend to be employed in very limited fields, traditionally academia. These are university professors and authors. They make their money by teaching others philosophy in classes and through media (books, videos, whatever). I fall into the latter category. I use my background in philosophy in the workplace. This is what typically happens if someone does their undergrad in philosophy and gets a decent job. I \"sell\" skills like inductive and deductive reasoning, rational inquiry, the interpretation of complex material into simple terms, and excellent oral and written communication into a position I am interested in (I work in organizational development). Because I sell these things, plus experience, I can get a job that provides. That is how I, and many others, make money from philosophy. By no stretch of the imagination are we Philosophers (other than the shade-tree sort). But, if you are interested in pursuing the degree, know that it is possible to live (in the US, pretty well) if you market it well. Many use philosophy to pursue advanced degrees or positions in Law (my friend Joy), Economics ( my friend Sara), Business (my buddy Nate), or Industrial and Organizational Psychology (me and two others from my grad school cohort).\n\n > I will always remember the opening words in my freshmen \"Intro to Philosophy\" text: Philosophia non panem torrit. Philosophy bakes no bread. Philosophers, today and throughout history make very little from doing actual philosophy and very much from applying to something whether it be teaching others, solving complex problems, or maintaining an organization.\n",
"Like a lot of social sciences, Philosophers are surprisingly flexible in terms of employability. \n\nStuff like HR departments or PR employ all kinds of professionals, lecturer at a publisher, editors of newspapers, journalists all can and will occasionally employ Philosophers (or people with a degree in philosophy to be precise) \n\nIf you have a degree in philosophy you are well trained in logic, ethics and in the work with text based sources of any kind. You could even work in a SIGNIT department of a intelligence service.",
"If you're just talking about somebody with an undergraduate degree in philosophy, they are semi-common degrees for lawyers to have, as there is no pre law degree in the United States, and the subject matter taught can be useful in the profession."
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3i9kam | how does companies like steam get away with not charging sales tax? | The only explanation I came up with is the game is free, but you just buy the license. Is this correct? | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/3i9kam/eli5_how_does_companies_like_steam_get_away_with/ | {
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"Depending on where you live, they **do** charge sales tax. Here's what that looks like from a purchase in Illinois: _URL_0_",
"Sales tax is for the state in which the item is purchased. Until recently, online sales from out-of-state residents were exempt from sales tax, but that has since changed.",
"Sales tax and online sales are kind of messed up. First of all understand that sales tax laws change state to state. So, there is very little consistency. \n\nThe basic rules are this. If a retailer has a physical presence (like a store or office) in a state, they MUST charge sales tax on sales in that state. If there is no physical offices in a given state, the store is not obliged to collect the sales tax. \n\nSales tax must still be paid on that item however the store is not required to charge it. That means it becomes the responsibility of the purchaser to declare the purchase at tax time and pay the sales tax then. Most people never do this and it's poorly enforced.\n\nSo, while technically there is a sales tax for all online purchases, the reality is that many online purchases are never properly taxed. Over the past 10 years states have complained that this rule has caused a significant decrease in sales tax revenues. So, state by state the laws are changing. In Canada, for example, sales tax must be charged based on the shipping address (or billing address in the case of digital goods).\n\nSo the likely explanation here is that you happen to live in a state that has not changed their laws yet and where valve has no physical offices. "
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2uq22b | why is the hydrogen car not getting more attention? | When I read that Toyota released the Miraj, they said it runs on hydrogen, is cheaper than petrol and emits clean exhaust fumes.
I thought this would be a huge thing and great for the world etc. But there is nothing else coming out and no media or internet fanfare.
Is this not a viable alternative to petrol cars? | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/2uq22b/eli5_why_is_the_hydrogen_car_not_getting_more/ | {
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"There are a couple of really big drawbacks to the hydrogen car with current technology. The first is hydrogen storage. Although hydrogen has a terrific energy density for it's weight (1 pound of hydrogen has ~3x the energy of 1 pound of gasoline) It turns out that as a gas and not a liquid, storing it is difficult and the space that the hydrogen takes up (the volume) is much much larger than the same amount of gasoline. While we can put more hydrogen in a smaller volume, that increases the pressure and is very dangerous when you want to be able to drive a car for more than a few miles without refilling. The second problem comes from difficulty of getting hydrogen. It turns out that we get a lot of our hydrogen from oil right now, producing carbon dioxide just as much as if we burned the oil as gasoline. So in the end, it doesn't make a lot of sense to use hydrogen as an alternative to gas and oil right now. That said, there are a lot of people working on ways to store hydrogen gas safely and produce it from water using solar electricity, which has only oxygen as a waste product."
]
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|
bge2yw | how exactly do trees get sick and how do plant related sicknesses spread? | [deleted] | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/bge2yw/eli5_how_exactly_do_trees_get_sick_and_how_do/ | {
"a_id": [
"elk5uns"
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"text": [
"There is various ways, via pathogens or insects such as earwigs,apheids, mealy bugs that eat the leaves and the bark, spreading from tree to tree. Dead rotten tissue spreads. \n They can spread if not contained. They are contained using a range of methods such pesticides. Chemicals that kills pests. Or pruning where the dead or infected tissue is cut way. Diseases can also be contained via biological methods that involve the use of lady-bugs to kills the pests."
]
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[]
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1r9y49 | why is over penetration from a bullet a bad thing? | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/1r9y49/eli5_why_is_over_penetration_from_a_bullet_a_bad/ | {
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"If a bullet goes into the target and comes out the other side, it is dangerous to anyone nearby. It might go straight through or ricochet in unpredictable ways. When dealing with firearms, you want the result when you pull the trigger to be as predictable as possible.",
"If a bullet goes through its target, the remaining kinetic energy that it has is wasted and it also has the potential to damage other things in its trajectory. Ideally bullet hits its intended target and deposits all of its kinetic energy into it in a fashion that causes maximum damage.",
"It's interesting to note that hollowpoints, which help prevent over penetration, are illegal in warfare. "
]
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||
18dsau | why is rope so strong? | Why not just have straight strands? | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/18dsau/why_is_rope_so_strong/ | {
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"Imagine you have to try and lift a giant cube of iron by some handles on top. Likely, it'll be too heavy for one arm. However, use your other arm as well, and get a friend to help - it will be much easier, because you're splitting the weight among every arm, and each will have a small load, instead of one with a large load.\n\nBraided ropes work in much the same way - if you try to put too large of a load on one strand, the strand will snap. However, if you add another strand, or a dozen, or a hundred, or a thousand, it will be much stronger, and will be able to hold more, because the load will be split among every single strand.\n\n"
]
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|
mosk1 | why do so many politicians abuse their power ? | Hardly a week goes by without a report on some elected official abusing the system or taking kickbacks etc. What causes so many supposedly good people to turn bad ? | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/mosk1/why_do_so_many_politicians_abuse_their_power/ | {
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"You are assuming they are good in the first place. To reach that level of political success you have to have some moral flexibility.\n\nThe more you delve into ends justifying means you become more of a sociopath/narcissist to the point where you do no think the consequences apply to you anymore.\n\nAt least that is what happened to me after I won my 3rd Grade class presidency.",
"people spend a fair amount of their lives yearning for power mainly just for the sole purpose of giving themselves an advantage over other people. once politicians get that power, many of them decide that it's time for them to get what they \"deserve\"",
"There are thousands and thousands of politicians in the country (many, many more if you are including international scandals like Berlusconi). While, undoubtedly, there are politicians that take kickbacks/are otherwise involved in shady doings who are never uncovered, the Blagojevichs are far outnumbered by politicians who are never implicated in any wrong doing. \"Politician plays by the rules!\" just isn't a very exciting news story. ",
"The way I tend to see it is that their intentions are often good. Let's say that a politician has a dream of some kind, then someone offers them a large amount of money if they do some favour for them. The politician understands that they need the money to accomplish their goals, so they make small concessions in order to get there.",
"You are assuming they are good in the first place. To reach that level of political success you have to have some moral flexibility.\n\nThe more you delve into ends justifying means you become more of a sociopath/narcissist to the point where you do no think the consequences apply to you anymore.\n\nAt least that is what happened to me after I won my 3rd Grade class presidency.",
"people spend a fair amount of their lives yearning for power mainly just for the sole purpose of giving themselves an advantage over other people. once politicians get that power, many of them decide that it's time for them to get what they \"deserve\"",
"There are thousands and thousands of politicians in the country (many, many more if you are including international scandals like Berlusconi). While, undoubtedly, there are politicians that take kickbacks/are otherwise involved in shady doings who are never uncovered, the Blagojevichs are far outnumbered by politicians who are never implicated in any wrong doing. \"Politician plays by the rules!\" just isn't a very exciting news story. ",
"The way I tend to see it is that their intentions are often good. Let's say that a politician has a dream of some kind, then someone offers them a large amount of money if they do some favour for them. The politician understands that they need the money to accomplish their goals, so they make small concessions in order to get there."
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1t43a2 | what is the consumer price index, cost-of-living adjustment, and why is there debate about which is better to use? | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/1t43a2/eli5_what_is_the_consumer_price_index/ | {
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"I think you might've gotten confused somewhere along the line. The COLA (cost-of-living adjustment) is directly based on the CPI (consumer price index).",
"The Consumer Price Index is a calculation performed by the Federal Government's Bureau of Labor & Statistics to determine the cost of a \"basket\" of goods and services. There are several different indexes that economists use to get a sense of how inflation is affecting the economy. The most commonly used CPI, and the CPI that most people are directly affected by is CPI-U, which looks at the basket through the lens of people who are in urban locations. (Stuff in cities costs more than stuff in the countryside due to taxes and overhead). CPI-U applies to about 87% of the US population.\n\nThe basket of goods and services is supposed to represent a broad cross section of the stuff people spend money on - food, clothing, rent, fuel, etc.\n\nThe prices of those things are checked by anonymous investigators who go into stores and get the price of specific items on a regular basis. So they don't look for the best deal on blue jeans, they look for the price of a specific Levi 501 jean in a certain size. All the investigators use the exact same product specifications so the prices they are gathering are on the same products. The prices are collected in 87 \"urban areas\". (An \"urban area\" might be a stand alone city like Seattle, or it might be both Brooklyn and Manhattan in New York).\n\nHere's a link to the FAQ from the BLS:\n\n_URL_0_\n\nThe theory behind the CPI is that if you track the prices of these goods over time you can see how their prices increase (inflate) or decrease (deflate) and use that as a proxy for large sectors of the economy. By gathering the data in a wide variety of places and averaging the results you can remove some of the bias that might occur from local economic effects or distortions. Generalizing the CPI to the whole economy is a way of deciding if prices are staying the same, going up or going down.\n\nA Cost of Living Adjustment is a way of changing someone's compensation so that as prices inflate their wages retain the same buying power. Imagine that you were paid $10/hour, and the price of a movie ticket was $10. One hour of your labor would be worth one movie ticket. If the price of the ticket went to $12, but your salary remained at $10/hour, you'd have to work longer to buy that ticket. If you got a \"Cost of Living Adjustment\" that increased your pay to $12/hour, you would not really have gained anything, since it would still take an hour of your labor to buy one movie ticket. \n\nSince most economies generate inflation (Japan is really the only recent exception in terms of advanced economies) without some kind of Cost of Living Adjustment, you are essentially taking a pay cut every year. Inflation in the United States averages between 1% and 3%, so after 10 years, that pay cut could be effectively 10% to 30%.\n\nUnderstanding how CPI is changing should help you negotiate for pay increases with your employer."
]
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2q87jw | what's so hard about human cryo-tech? preserving a healthy human and then defrosting 100 years later alive? | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/2q87jw/eli5_whats_so_hard_about_human_cryotech/ | {
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"When water freezes, it forms tiny ice crystals. When those crystals form inside cells, they rip apart the cell membrane causing irreparable damage. ",
"When complex multi-cellular structures are frozen, they die. No technology has been able to stop this to date. In other words if you freeze a healthy and alive person, the freezing process will kill them. When you defrost them, you will be defrosting a corpse. ",
"In the United States, cryopreservation of adult humans can only be done on someone who has been declared legally dead, otherwise it counts and murder and/or assisted suicide (after all, no one has been revived after cryopreservation ... you may note that this is a bit of a catch-22). Thus nobody is legally allowed to try preserving and eventually reviving a healthy person in the U.S.. \n\nAs for the practical difficulties, there are several, but there are also ways of dealing with them. [Cryopreservation](_URL_0_) of cells, tissues, and even human embryos is very much in use. That page discusses both the risks (mostly related to ice crystal formation) and ways of dealing with them, and mentions that more than three hundred thousand live births have resulted from cryopreserved embryos. Multiple studies have shown no negative effects on the resulting children. \n\nThe larger the chunk of tissue involved, the more difficult the current methods for avoiding negative side-effects become. Adult humans, or even large organs such as hearts or livers, are quite large and thus more difficult to preserve than individual cells or embryos. One possible method is \"vitrification\" through the addition of cryoprotectant chemicals to the person's body fluids. The chemicals discourage ice crystal formation and promote instead the formation of an amorphous, glassy solid as the mixture of water and cryoprotectant cools. This thus prevents damage from ice crystal formation. However, the chemicals themselves are toxic in high concentrations, and such concentrations are generally required for proper vitrification in large tissue samples. I believe whole large human organs have not been successfully cryopreserved ... yet. Research continues. Mentioned in the Wikipedia page was that one company has successfully preserved a rabbit kidney (using their own proprietary mix of cryoprotectants), thawed it out, and shown that it functioned properly when transplanted into a rabbit, so smaller human organs might be possible as well. ",
"Well first of all, as most of the comments below indicate when you freeze water or even lipid-based structures like those in our cells, you cause irreparable damage to the structure, the molecular information, and it's very undesirable.\n\nThe best way therefore is to actually slow down biochemical and metabolic processes but we don't even understand the full range of them let alone how one stimuli affects an entire process in full or totality. \n\nCyro-tech is difficult because it's not meant to be an end-all tech, it's the worst best step in the direction of indefinite suspension and the hope is that by freezing people, you do minimal damage to non-essential tissues but leave enough DNA intact that far into the future it can be used to repair or recreate the damaged tissues or, if need be, create a copy of said person."
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83m7ue | why does coughing tear up your throat when all you are doing is expelling air? | Sick and random thought occurred, thought I'd ask.
| explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/83m7ue/eli5_why_does_coughing_tear_up_your_throat_when/ | {
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"A cough is a vigorous expulsion of air to eject a foreign object or whatever is irritating you airways. To get that you are closing off your throat at the epiglottis, then building up some pressure behind it before opening the airway so the air comes out in a rush. That fast flow causes the soft tissues to vibrate together as the air passes over them.\n\nThink of the way that the neck of a balloon vibrates and makes that distinctive sound when you let the air out.\n\nIn addition, your throat tissues are probably already sore and inflamed from the irritation by whatever is making you cough."
]
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|
1itfr7 | what's the difference between a tube amp, solid state amp, amphead, stack, etc? | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/1itfr7/eli5_whats_the_difference_between_a_tube_amp/ | {
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"A tube amp uses vacuum tubes in its amplifier stages. It supposedly has a warmer cleaner sound.\n\nSolid State amps use transistors or ICs for amplification.\n\nA hybrid amp uses both transistors and tubes. Most often a Hybrid amp uses tubes in the preamp section to get the warmth, a but a transistor/IC power amplifier for cost and efficiency. \n\nA combo amp is one that has the amplifier and speaker in one case.\n\nA stack has the amplifier and speaker as separate units, in which case the amplifier is called a \"head\" and the speaker a \"cab\".\n"
]
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||
3zotja | why are vegans against dairy and eggs? | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/3zotja/eli5_why_are_vegans_against_dairy_and_eggs/ | {
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"text": [
"Yeah, it's generally because the cows and chickens and such that non-meat animal products come from are horribly mistreated. "
]
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||
cco0wb | how is the scrotum able to react to temperature changes by tightening or loosening but when i’m in the shower with hot water running over them they still shrink if it’s cold. | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/cco0wb/eli5_how_is_the_scrotum_able_to_react_to/ | {
"a_id": [
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"text": [
"The temperature range for ideal sperm production is actually quite narrow. The [cremaster muscle](_URL_0_) is responsible for lowering (cooling) or raising (warming) the testicles in an attempt to maintain that ideal temperature to keep the sperm healthy.",
"we have a cremaster muscle[ see here](_URL_0_) The cremaster muscle's function is to raise and lower the testes in order to regulate scrotal temperature . It does this by increasing or decreasing the exposed surface area of the surrounding tissue, allowing faster or slower dissipation of body heat.\n \nIn the shower the water and rubbing stimulates our cremastic reflex, The cremasteric reflex is a superficial reflex found in human males that is elicited when the inner part of the thigh is stroked. Stroking of the skin causes the cremaster muscle to contract and pull up the ipsilateral testicle toward the inguinal canal.\n\nHence our balls can shrink in the shower."
]
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eh52v1 | before language was invented was an internal dialogue possible for humans? how would it have worked? | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/eh52v1/eli5_before_language_was_invented_was_an_internal/ | {
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"That's an interesting question, and I doubt anyone can tell you since you'd need to experience it to know for sure, but I can tell you that this morning while it was still dark, I was stumbling into a bathroom, then in my mind's eye saw the contraption I was working on the day before and had laid on the floor, so (without any inner-dialogue) veered course to a different bathroom.\n\nThe big take-away on this is that language probably is what caused a big brain explosion in primates, especially humans, since suddenly there was a big demand, with huge payoffs, for understanding the meaning of sounds that others made. \n\nSo to answer your question more fully, before language, there would have been no place in the brain to process inner-dialogue. Why would there be?",
"keep in mind, things were a WHOLE LOT more simple when language wasn’t around.\n\nRoughly (and I’m no expert) it would’ve guttural noises and body language along the lines of\n\n\nEAT\nSLEEP\nRAVE\nREPEAT\n\nAs I said, I am no expert.",
"I'm not sure, but animals clearly have a thought process to make their day to day decisions. I suppose you could call that an internal monologue, although it wouldn't be words. Maybe a combination of sounds and pictures?",
"Yes. I can't tell you how it would have worked, but I am a speech therapist and I work with non speaking children and adults. Once they develop verbal language they can tell us that they had the same kind of thought functions as us, but it was produced more in concepts or pictures.",
"You can think just fine without language, and language can be decoupled from intelligence, as demonstrated by people with very low intelligence who are still exceptionally linguistically proficient (but everything they say is made up nonsense), and by people who are very intelligent but still can't speak due to e.g. brain injuries. Steven Pinker goes through a bunch of these arguments in his book *The Language Instinct*.\n\nCommunication between people is extremely slow and difficult without a complex language, but inside your head it isn't necessary."
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a3pelg | what is abductive reasoning? | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/a3pelg/eli5_what_is_abductive_reasoning/ | {
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"It is trying to figure out the best explanation for something without needing to prove it. Sort of trying to figure out the cause due to the effect.\n\nIt's not great for proving something is true, but can be helpful for finding avenues to explore. Think of troubleshooting a pc, if a screen is out we can deduce the cause through testing, but abduction would help us get ideas of where to start. \"is it plugged in? What did you do with it last time it worked? Have you hit restart? Etc.\n\nIn the end, abductive reasoning leads to\" well, this can cause the outcome we see. It's not for sure, but is one option\". ",
"It's kind of like Occams Razor.\n\nAbductive reasoning starts with an observation and comes to a likely, simplist, conclusion without positive verification. A \"probable\" conclusion rather than a definitive one."
]
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aztebp | why do the tv shows produced by local stations on a budget look so terrible, while those produced by hbo/netflix/etc look so good? how exactly does the extra budget money make them look so much better? | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/aztebp/eli5_why_do_the_tv_shows_produced_by_local/ | {
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"text": [
"It funds better lighting, and cinematography instead of just video recording. Using much more expensive cameras and knowing what you are doing produces vastly better results than a local station can afford for Good Morning {Name of Town}.",
"Better lighting equipment, better cameras, better props and sets, etc. All of that stuff comes in a variety of quality, and the higher quality costs money. So do experienced and skilled crew members (to rig up lights, operate cameras, etc). There's also the ability to afford filming on location instead of on a set and the ability to afford more takes and reshoots when the first attempt doesn't look good.",
"Everything the others have said, plus a dedicated ***editing / post-production team***.\n\nGood equipment will get you good raw footage, and a skilled editing team can stitch it all together real nice and flowing, by e.g. accurately cutting out bad footage, putting well-timed transitions in, blending video and audio effectively, putting in overlays and effects, etc.\n\nWith smaller budgets / when it's just Dave trying to put it together overnight, you are often forced to leave out a lot of these refinements, resulting in a final product that is often 'rough around the edges'\n\n*Edit: ELI5-ised*",
"More money means you can hire experts who charge more for their services. You can also hire more of them, and you can keep them working longer.\n\nYou can also afford to do things like “build sets” or “travel somewhere pretty” instead of shooting in whatever you can find around town."
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2sp3w6 | how does the curiosity rover take pictures of itself? | When looking at pictures like [this](_URL_0_) it appears there is nothing attached to the rover itself that is taking the picture. | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/2sp3w6/eli5how_does_the_curiosity_rover_take_pictures_of/ | {
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"I won't be able to explain any better, so have a look here: _URL_0_",
"I'm trying to post you this link but the stupid automoderator of this sub has removed my post so here I am writing a lengthy sentence in the hopes that it will not detect lack of content and delete it. The following link contains a video that will explain to you how Curiosity took its selfie.\n\n_URL_0_\n\nNo offence but at this rate they should rename the sub /r/lmgtfy",
"By utilising [advanced technological equipment designed specifically for this purpose] (_URL_0_)"
]
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3r6zvb | the speaker of the house is not nonpartisan? | I've noticed that the new Speaker of the United States congress (Paul Ryan) listed repealing Obama care as one of his top priorities, which seems incredibly partisan to me. In Canada (where I live) the speaker of the house (federally) and of the legislatures (provincially) are usually nonpartisan and don't push specific legislative agendas. Is this not a thing for the U.S? Why is this? How does this role differ in the U.S and Canada? (Posted here cause r/politics doesn't allow text) | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/3r6zvb/eli5_the_speaker_of_the_house_is_not_nonpartisan/ | {
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"The Speaker, in the U.S., is usually a major figure in the majority party and is usually partisan (at least recently). In fact, Boehner's relative willingness to compromise was a big part of why he had so much trouble getting the Republicans in line.",
"The Speaker of the House in the Westminster system is a non-partisan figure who is there to ensure the rules of the House are followed, and to allow debate.\n\nThe Speaker of the House in the American system is the leader of the largest party (similar to, but not same as, a Westminster Prime Minister). They set the agenda, and actively work to push the polices of their party through."
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32s6g4 | inflammation and atherosclerosis | Contemporary medical research is focusing a lot on diet-induced inflammation, and how this may be the leading cause in ailments such as atherosclerosis.
What I have not understood, is the mechanism behind this inflammation? How do the arteries get inflamed? A chemical 'irritates' the cell walls? If so, how? If not, then how? | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/32s6g4/eli5_inflammation_and_atherosclerosis/ | {
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"The basics of this are that inflammation occurs when cells are damaged, the source of damage doesn't matter but when a cell IS damaged they release chemicals that cause inflammation.\nAtherosclerosis is also a process based in cell damage. Your blood always has a certain amount of circulating cholesterol which is perfectly normal and flows along with everything else, but when the lining of an artery is damaged cholesterol molecules enter under the first lining layer and form a little plaque, basically thickening the point to stop it being damaged again.\nThere are some theories bouncing about that fat in your diet doesn't cause atherosclerosis because it doesn't cause the damage, yes it means more cholesterol circulating in the blood but not more deposits. Sugar is now getting a lot of flack as high levels for glucose in the blood can cause damage to the lining of the arteries."
]
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|
3z6alj | possible solutions to xeno's paradox | Could anyone ELI5 the possible solutions to Xeno's Paradox? In case you may be unfamiliar with it, it is a series of paradoxes developed by the ancient Greeks. Essentially, it is states that moving from point 'A' to point 'B' is physically impossible because you must pass through an infinite series of midpoints.
For example, to go a distance of 10 miles, you must first travel 5 miles. To reach 5 miles, you must travel 2.5 miles. To reach 2.5 miles, you must first travel 1.25 miles and so on to infinity. Thus, as you must traverse infinite midpoints, travelling 10 miles should not be possible...yet we do it all the time...
Does anyone know if there is a ELI5 solution to the paradox?
Thanks! | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/3z6alj/eli5_possible_solutions_to_xenos_paradox/ | {
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"The solution is that at the same time you're halving distance, you're also halving time. So while you have an infinite number of steps, most of them take an infinitesimal amount of time.\n\nYou could state Xeno's Paradox the other way as well: you're traveling distances in effectively no (or, at least, infinitesimal) amounts of time, so all movement is teleportation!\n\nThis should seem obviously silly - and it should seem as obviously silly as the notion that you can never move anywhere because you have to move half the distance first.",
"Zeno's paradox relies on the implicit assumption that it takes an infinite amount of time to cross an infinite number of points, but this clearly isn't true - the time taken is proportional to the distance, and when you divide up the distance in the manner proposed you are *also* dividing up the time, so that the total amount of time to travel the 10 miles doesn't actually change (as you would expect).\n\nSuppose you travel at 10mph. It takes you half an hour to travel the first 5 miles,1/4 of an hour to travel the next 2.5 miles, 1/8 of an hour to travel the next 1.25 miles. How long does it take to travel the full distance? Well, that's equal to the infinite summation:\n\n T=0.5+0.25+0.125+0.625+...\n\nNow we can multiply both sides by 2: (yes, I know this is not rigorous)\n\n 2T=1+0.5+0.25+0.125+... \n 2T=1+T\n T=1\n\nSo it takes 1 hour to travel 10 miles at 10 miles an hour, exactly as you'd expect. The introduction of an infinite division of space doesn't change the result. The idea that an infinite series can have a finite sum didn't exist in Zeno's time - it took the development of analysis to give a proper treatment of such summations."
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59is37 | how does shampoo and body wash work so effectively when it only stays on our body for a few seconds before getting washed off? | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/59is37/eli5_how_does_shampoo_and_body_wash_work_so/ | {
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"If I understood correctly, you are basically asking how soap works. \n\nSoap/shampoo/body wash has molecules that can interact with both the water and the fat/dirt you want to remove. These molecules have a polar portion, which binds them to water, and an apolar portion, which makes them able to interact with organic matter (fat, dirt, basically what you want to remove when using soap). So in a way, soap allows the organic matter (dirt) to become \"soluble\" in water. You're not really destroying the dirt molecules per se, as much as allowing them to be washed away and go down the drain.",
"[There's a Magic Schoolbus Episode featuring Wynonna Judd about this.](_URL_0_)",
"In addition to the above comments, friction also helps. \nLike when you wash your hands with alcohol rub, or soap and water, it's friction doing a lot of the work along with the soap/alcohol rub. ",
"Dirt on your skin and water that you use to wash up with are like your two pointer fingers. Shampoo/body wash/soap are like a Chinese finger trap. When you get all three of these things in the same place at more or less the same time, you'll eventually have the Chinese finger traps trapping the dirtfinger with the waterfinger.\n\nThe only difference is that the waterfinger is stronger and rips off the dirtfinger to go down the drain.",
"Am I weird for having it in a couple minutes instead of \"seconds\"? Does it actually work in just seconds?",
"Soaps are surfactants, and a surfactant is a substance that is both soluble in oil and water. Normally oil and water dont like to mix, hence why salad dressings will always reseparate after shaking them. Oil is not soluable in water, unlike something like salt that dissolves really easily. Surfactants make oil more like salt, more easily dissolved into water and more easily washed away.\n\n\n\n\nSidenote: Surfactants are also necessary for humans to breathe since they take away surface tension from water. Your lungs are basically a bunch of little deflated balloons the need to fill with air. But since there's a little bit of water on the inside of these balloons, the balloons have trouble inflating since the sides are stuck together, sort of like wearing a wet t-shirt and trying to pull it away from your skin. Surfactants break surface tension, making it easier for the sides of the balloon to separate. \n ",
"I think OP isn't asking how soap works but rather, why we have to wait a little before rinsing(?) the shampoo",
"Like stated above, it has to do with the polarity of the molecules which allows them to essentially become \"Slippery\" and wash/slide off your body. \nIt seems to happen so quickly because it's a polarization reaction, much like that of a magnet. The same reason the soap only takes an instant to work in most cases can be understood much like a magnet, they instantly polarize when placed near a material with which they can interact. \n\nSomething about hand washing I learned in Medical school is when it comes to getting your hands clean of pathogens and other potentially infectious materials, running water (as opposed to a basin of water), along with friction is far more important than actual soap. \n\nHope that could help clear up some confusion for you. \n\n"
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8k810h | are there any benefits to regressive taxation? has it ever been used? | Hey! I'm currently taking econ in high school and have been reading into the different forms of taxation. I find regressive taxation to be quite fascinating because of it's inherent awfulness (tax more to the poor, less to the rich). When doing research online I haven't found a single example of a country actually using it or it's benefits, and I'm curious if there are any. What's the point of learning about regressive taxation if it's not even a real-world thing? | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/8k810h/eli5_are_there_any_benefits_to_regressive/ | {
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"There are many forms of regressive taxes in common use. Sales taxes, for example, are regressive, which is why food is often exempt from them.",
"Not much of a thing anymore. Basically all of serfdom was a regressive tax, at least how it’s portrayed. A possible reason for regressive taxation is that the majority of the population is poor, and the wealthy, elite citizens need the money to improve everyone’s lives. \n\nAlso, it’s feasible that the vast majority of people could be considered “rich” and only a small fraction be considered poor. If the majority of a culture has power, they may use it to oppress the minority. \n\nAs far as a possible use in the United States, unlikely. I could see us getting to a proportional tax system, with maybe some extra deductions for the really poor (something like that). \n\nSchool is about learning how to think, not about facts and figures in the real world. Understanding the three tax systems is just a way to think about ethics, economics, math, and culture. You’re doing a good job of it by looking for the pros and cons of each, even though you dislike regressive taxation. ",
"The US has a regressive tax system for very rich people. Almost all of my income is capital gains which are taxed much less than income. I give lots to charity which lowers it still more. There are other tricks besides (legal ones I mean). \n\nIt may not be fair, but it's the system we have. ",
"Not an expert on this, but French nobles are exempt from tax such as taille in the old regime, before the French Revolution of 1789. I don't really know why this is, but my guess is that it has to do with the social hierarchy and class system from medieval Europe.\n\nedit: I thought about it a bit more and it makes sense that monarchs will be inclined to tax peasants and not the nobles.\nMonarchs, even absolute monarchs like Louis XIV, needs support from certain key people. People like finance ministers and military leaders. These are the people that can overthrow a regime if they really put their mind on it. To stay in power, the ruler must keep these people loyal and happy. A tax break is a simple way to give favors to these important people to keep them loyal. \n\nNow peasants are another story. They often labor in the fields for the entire day and are uneducated. These are the people who are going to have a seriously hard time challenging any regime. Looking at peasant revolts like German Peasant War in 1525 or Pugachev's Rebellion in 1773, they all got harshly suppressed by the monarch. This is because the monarch still had the support of the nobles, meaning they are able to put down these rebellions. Successful revolts, like the French Revolution and English Glorious Revolution, are organized by the Middle or Upper class and often had the support of the military. This means as long as the peasants aren't dying, the ruler can put a heavy tax on them since they do not have a significant impact on the regime.\n\n\nTLDR: Tax breaks for Nobles because they are important; heavy tax on peasants because they couldn't do anything about it.",
"Regressive income tax is basically non-existent but many sales and excise taxes end up being regressive due to the marginal utility of money. The more money you earn, the less each dollar is important to you, and the less likely you are to spend it. On the flip side, the less you earn, the more important each dollar is and you become more likely to use it to purchase necesities. \n\n"
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1btkn4 | the challenger (space shuttle) crash. | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/1btkn4/eli5_the_challenger_space_shuttle_crash/ | {
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"The Challenger disaster was technically a structural failure leading to an explosion. It was caused by a design flaw in the solid rocket boosters (SRB's) which are the two big white rockets stuck to the outside of the big orange tank (look at a picture of the space shuttle). The SRB's are essentially long tubes of solid fuel, like a big firework. They're made of several smaller tubes clipped together by large joints, sort of like coke cans stacked together. To seal the joints and prevent hot gases escaping (which is bad) there are 2 rubber o-rings in each joint to produce a seal. \n\nThis is where the problem is: When it gets cold, rubber shrinks and gets weak, and this is what happened to the o-rings on Challenger. This had happened before on space shuttle launches: The shrunken o-rings had allowed hot gas to blast past them through the joint and got damaged, but had accidentally fixed themselves as they had been blown out of the notches they where seated in and sealed the joint.\n\nWhat happened on Challenger didn't go as well. The day of the launch and the night before had been very cold, and the o-rings had shrunk. When the solid rocket boosters ignited at lift-off, the hot gases rushed past the o-rings and eventually destroyed one set of them in the SRB on the right. Also, the high pressure inside the SRB caused the casing of the booster to balloon outwards (another design flaw). This combined to make a huge gap in the joint, through which a stream of very hot gas poured through. This hot gas stream began to burn through one of the joints holding the SRB to the big orange fuel tank. Eventually this joint between tank and booster failed completely: the top of the solid rocket booster detached and smashed through the orange tank, smashing it apart. This caused the contents of the tank (liquid oxygen and hydrogen) to ignite causing a huge explosion which tore apart Challenger. "
]
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||
pyqd3 | how is it that an equation is able to describe the nature of reality? | While I was watching a video it said, "Einstein's equation suggested the universe was either expanding or condensing." How can abstract numbers define something like the nature of the universe? | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/pyqd3/eli5_how_is_it_that_an_equation_is_able_to/ | {
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"Equations aren't about numbers. You put numbers into them and get numbers out of them, but that's not the point. The point of equations is to express *concepts*, by describing how different numbers are related. \n\nSo with the right equation, you can describe how the expansion of the universe is related to certain numbers. If you find that the expansion rate number is not 0, then the universe is either expanding or contracting.",
"You're sort of mistaking cause and effect. The equation (or theory) is built to describe observations that have been made. Once you have a theory that does a good job of describing what you've observed, you can then use the theory to *predict* things.",
"How did we get the idea for numbers?\n\nWe got it by looking at the world around us and noticing that sometimes things happened in pairs, or in threes, or fours, or so on. You have *two* eyes and *one* nose; you have *ten* fingers. If you hold up your hands in front of your face, you'll notice that you have *the same* number of hands that you have eyes. Hands and eyes are not the same, but \"two\" describes both your hands *and* your eyes.\n\nThen we noticed that if you have two apples and someone gives you three apples, you now have five apples; and then if you eat one, you have four left. And it works *the same* for carrots, or cows, or dollars as it works for apples. The same equations 2 + 3 = 5 and 5 – 1 = 4 could describe what happens when you give and take chairs, or figs, or houses. Adding and subtracting work the same for numbers no matter what the numbers are counting.\n\nYou mentioned that numbers are abstract. But what does \"abstract\" mean? It means *exactly* that numbers work the same regardless of what they are numbers of. \n\nThe same is true for other math ideas, like triangles. If you have a triangle whose sides are all the same length, then its angles will also be the same. This is true no matter if the triangle is drawn on a piece of paper or built out of popsicle sticks. Triangles are abstract: the rules for triangles work the same no matter what the triangles are made out of.\n\nScientists keep finding things in nature that math describes well. For instance, there is a math pattern called the Fibonacci numbers, that goes like this: 1, 1, 2, 3, 5, 8, 13, 21, and so on. Each Fibonacci number is made by adding the two previous ones. Fibonacci numbers were invented by a guy whose nickname was Fibonacci (big surprise!) but he invented them for a pretend puzzle.\n\nThen later it turned out that [they are in flowers](_URL_0_), and other things in nature, for reasons that have to do with how the flowers grow. Fibonacci didn't invent them to describe flowers, but when someone went and looked at flowers, they found Fibonacci numbers there ... and they figured out why, too ... because the *abstraction* of Fibonacci numbers shares the same pattern as how the flowers grow.\n\nThe same sort of thing keeps happening. People who look at various things in nature find out that they follow patterns, and that these patterns can be described with math abstractions. In fact, you could say that math is all about *what abstractions are possible* — coming up with new ones and finding out what patterns they produce — while science is (in part) about looking at the world and finding out if there are abstractions that fit the world's patterns.",
"How is it that I can figure out how much money I have at the end of the month when I know my starting balance, income and expense?\n\nHow did these \"abstract numbers\" describe my current financial situation? This is _such a difficult concept_."
]
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|
2zu53h | why do you see more in the camera app, depending on the orientation of your phone? | My friends were freaking out about this today. Why when you rotate your phone while taking a picture, doe do you see more depending on your phone's orientation?
Like, in portrait you see more up & down, and in landscape you see more left to right. | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/2zu53h/eli5_why_do_you_see_more_in_the_camera_app/ | {
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"Your scene is a rectangle not s square so the camera is cropped to fit the display. ",
"A smartphone's camera is 4:3 in landscape, so when you take a portrait shot it's 3:4. Almost all camera sensors are rectangular, DSLR's and high-end compacts that shoot RAW are 3:2 in landscape."
]
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[],
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|
42cugu | does alcohol increase or decrease dopamine levels | I know at first alcohol raises dopamine levels but what about in the long run? | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/42cugu/eli5does_alcohol_increase_or_decrease_dopamine/ | {
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"[Read this](_URL_0_)\n\nI am the walking hedonic dysregulation theory"
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"http://www.hamsnetwork.org/dopamine.pdf"
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|
2r1nch | why are republicans against giving the lgbt community equality? | I read an article about Democrats wanting to introduce a bill in Congress that would ban discrimination and the like targeted at the LGBT community. For what reasons would conservatives not be in support of this? | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/2r1nch/eli5_why_are_republicans_against_giving_the_lgbt/ | {
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"IMO, it's got not much to do with human's rights then it has to do with the religious wing. \n\nIf I'm not mistaken, many of the active conservative communities oppose to the LGBT and hence their support or lack of support may become a problem for their vote bank, which is made up of conservative community.\n\nThese are my opinion, please feel free to correct me if I'm wrong.",
"From a political perspective, a large voting block for the Republican party are older and very religiously conservative (Usually Christian, specifically protestant). The more conservative forms of Christianity do not favor homosexuality. If the Republican party were to openly support protections for homosexuals (and others that fall into LGBT categories) they risk alienating an important voter block, which affects their reelection chances and political power.",
"A lot of Republican voters are conservative Christians who believe that homosexuality is a sin. A Republican politician who supports the LGBT community risks losing their votes.\n\nI think that one thing that might help you understand it a little better, from that perspective, being gay isn't just an acceptable difference in someone's personality, it's something that's wrong with them, or that they're doing wrong. They believe that creating laws that cater to LGBTs encourages it, and causes some sort of national moral decline.",
"Cause the government spends all of it's energy pretending to be useful and milking whatever funding they possibly can for it's maximum personal profit. They have shown by opting out of anything they force on us that they are not interested in us in the slightest. "
]
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35j39o | why do people use itunes even though there are may other ways to download music. | ^ | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/35j39o/eli5_why_do_people_use_itunes_even_though_there/ | {
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"text": [
"I believe you have to use iTunes to download to apple devices, and if you want to legally purchase music why not use iTunes as opposed to any other format",
"The Itunes store was one of the first big services for purchasing music legally on a computer. It is also has a huge amount of content in not just music, but also in movies, books, podcasts etc. \n\nMany people started using itunes back when there weren't that many competitors and they continue using it today because they are either pretty pleased with it or because they've already spend enough money on their itunes account that they don't feel much of a push to switch. Most of us really don't want six different accounts with six different services with a few purchased songs on each account. We'd much rather just have everything in one place.",
"Because it's widespread, easy, and is how you load music onto the most popular music players in the world.",
"Because it is a convenient place to purchase music. Same thing as Google Play Music or Amazon Music. Of course the software itself is required to sync Apple products, but that's sort of unrelated. I don't own any Apple devices but I still use iTunes to purchase my music over Google Play."
]
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[],
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|
4u6i7z | does ice go bad? if i found some ice cubes that had been sitting in a freezer since 1945, could i eat them? | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/4u6i7z/eli5_does_ice_go_bad_if_i_found_some_ice_cubes/ | {
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"If the ice was made from good water in the first place it is probably good. Glacier ice is sold as a novelty. It is thousands of years old.\n\nIce made from contaminated water is not good and probably stays contaminated for a long time.\n\nIce and soap which falls on the ground can be rinsed off. It is then clean. The surface melted.",
"Assuming the ice hasn't subliminated(you might need a bigger ice block) and was placed in sterile and cold enough conditions. Yes you could eat it."
]
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[],
[]
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