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942aft | how do sodium and potassium help aid in hydration? | I feel like I have a vague understanding of the sodium potassium pump but can't fully conceptualize how this relates to (or if it does at all) hydration, or water getting into the cells. If the cells pump sodium out and bring potassium in, wouldn't the water stay outside of the cell? To go further, how does the sodium get into the cell in the first place? | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/942aft/eli5_how_do_sodium_and_potassium_help_aid_in/ | {
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"You're on the right track with the sodium-potassium pump in relation to how muscle utilize the electrolytes.\n\nFor actual \"hydration\", sodium and potassium don't directly help with hydration. As muscles do their thing, and your body sweats, it loses electrolytes (sodium, potassium, etc) so drinking fluids with those helps to replenish that which was lost.\n\nHydration is more like osmosis, or water going to an area of a higher concentration to try to \"even things out\"; if your blood vessels have a higher concentration of sodium than the cells do, water will move from the cells to the blood vessels to try to equalize the ratio so that the vessels and cells are about equal, and vice versa.\n\nSodium gets in to cells via the sodium channel, or a \"doorway\" designed to move sodium from one side of the cell membrane to the other. Some things, such as water, pass through cells without issue. Others, like sodium, needs a door. Still more, like sugar, needs a \"key\" (insulin) to move in to cells. "
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16kgcm | do abusive parents produce abusive children, or submissive ones? | It would make sense that an abused child would live life fearfully, but it also makes sense that abuse happens in unbroken cycles. Is one of these right? Or possibly both? | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/16kgcm/eli5_do_abusive_parents_produce_abusive_children/ | {
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"They can produce fucked up kids who can be submissive and/or abusive at different places in their lives.",
"In cases of abused children, generally you end up with both situations arising. If a child is abused they can start to self identify as a victim and start to display learned helplessness - a state where they are convinced that no matter what they do, they're going to still be victimized and terrible things will continue to happen. \n\nAs an example of this consider a child that is beaten under the pretense of not cleaning their room. After the beating they clean their room and make sure everything is nice and tidy and start to feel pride in their accomplishment. After this they are again beaten or otherwise abused, the abuser using another pretense to justify the abuse. The child was expecting to be rewarded (even subtly) and was punished again. As this continues to happen the child will learn that no matter what punishment will happen and end up resigned to their sad predicament. This explains why they can be seen as more passive and often times don't work to try and make their situations better/end up exhibiting self-destructive tendencies.\n\nOn the other side of the coin, an abused child is being taught (incorrectly) that the abusive behavior is the response for a wide range of situations. Consider that you're a small child and you touched your father's prize bowling trophy. You thought it was just a toy and wanted to play with it, but he beat you for touching it. After enough incidents of things like this happening you start to associate touching other people's things with a beating and you accept it as fact. Now, one day in school a classmate touches one of your toys when you didn't want them to. Since you have been taught that physical attacks are the response in this situation, you hit them. \n\nBeing abused is a double edged sword. Not only are you more likely to be violent, you're also less likely to seek help since you don't believe you'll get help or that the help will be useful. You've learned that nothing will please your abusers except for their abuse. You begin to learn that using abuse is the appropriate response to a lot of situations and thus start to emulate abusive behavior.",
"It's offensive that you assume that there isn't a third option, and that people who were abused as children are utterly helpless to get better. We're not. We're in control of our own lives. It's hard for us, but we can do it, and regularly do. Just because some of us use that misconception as an excuse for what they find themselves doing, doesn't make it true.",
"There are more options, but it got me thinking about myself...\n\nThis isn't a sob story. I'm a pretty well-rounded and happy person.\n\nI was raised by a mentally and emotionally abusive mother, who was raised by a mentally and emotionally abusive mother herself and a physically abusive father. As a child I was very submissive and afraid. Some people thought I was shy, and to a degree I was, but I'd mostly become accustomed to being fearful of opening my mouth and saying...well...anything really. My mom has clinical issues that left her with the inability to show love (and maybe feel it, I'm not sure) and no matter what I said she found a way to twist it into me doing or saying something threatening. She has openly expressed a hatred toward me all my life, for no real reason other than she has no other emotion. Obviously there is more to that but...well I'm supposed to pretend you're 5 so I'll move past it.\n\nSo again, I was quiet and submissive and afraid into my college years. After 18, 19, 20 years of being submissive, something snapped. I got angry. My body, mind and heart was sick of it. My mom was less of an influence on me seeing as I lived on campus and suddenly I had power. Control. Of myself. But also, if I was loud enough, I could have that power and control over other people. I became cynical and biting. That \"don't take sh*t from nobody\" mentality turned into me shutting people down before they had a chance to oppress me in any way. By doing that, I became abusive. Not to the degree my mother ever was. And I'm not even sure my friends would call it \"abuse\" if I asked them. Maybe mean or bitchy. I didn't know how abusive I was being till I saw it in the faces of my friends. I saw my former self in their faces. God that killed me. \n\nIts like this: for 20 years my mother was holding me under water, angrily and psychotically shoving me under the surface with a menacing grin on her face. Then somehow I got free, swam away and took a breath of real, fresh air. But when I looked up I saw other people's arms hovering over me, not necessarily motivated to push me back under water, but definitely positioned in the right place to do it. And I refused to go back under that water. So I scratched and clawed at those arms and bent them out of my way so I'd never be without oxygen again. \n\nNow I have to keep it in check. I can sense when I'm getting a little too anxious and frustrated and I walk away from situations where I might feel oppressed. I am always worried I will turn into my mom. But I think it is my system of checking myself and being constantly reflective of my emotions sets me apart from her. But I know what I'm capable of and it scares me. I will probably never have children because of it. "
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j2flh | can someone please explain exactly what a 'realist' person is? | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/j2flh/can_someone_please_explain_exactly_what_a_realist/ | {
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"Sorry, but could you clarify? In what situation did you hear this being used? International politics, US politics, everyday life?",
"A realist is best seen as an opposite to an 'idealist' (someone who is focused on ideals rather than the practicalities of life). A realist therefore views the world \"as it is\" and doesn't see it in idealised or romanticised way.\n\nHope that helps!"
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bvnzyy | why do some large, multimillion dollar companies have so much trouble making a website that works well on mobile ? | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/bvnzyy/eli5_why_do_some_large_multimillion_dollar/ | {
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"Those are usually riddled with ads, adware, tracking stuff for future ads and adware etc. Most news sites are now because that’s the only way they can monetize it without subscription fees",
"There are a lot of potential aspects to this, but I'm a software developer who used to work for a giant digital agency making those multi-million dollar sites, and it is insane how much overhead and waste there is with companies that throw that kind of money around.\n\nOne of my last projects before I left, a company literally paid for me and a team of developers full time as contractors through my agency, which means they were paying at least a few hundred an hour each, for almost 3 weeks, for us to sit around watching YouTube videos while they figured out what they wanted us to work on. Then once you do get to work, there are so many stakeholders and managers with conflicting priorities that it can become nearly impossible to make meaningful progress towards a streamlined product. \n\nTLDR: Paying multiple millions of dollars for a website can sometimes net you a pretty mediocre, bloated website with a lot of consultant travel and expensed business lunches.",
"The management doesn't know shit about websites, they just tell the designer, I want this and that and this and that and these things too, and I want to make money from ads, lots of money.",
"Many of them want to steer you towards the app, which they have more control over and can collect different kinds of data.",
"It is difficult and expensive. New web site designs take years, and little of it is affected by skilled programmers.\n\n & #x200B;\n\nIt is very hard to design a web site for multiple stakeholders with differing priorities. And most large companies have a range of priorities. That is because they have multiple products. For example, Apple needs to balance the needs of the iPhone and the Mac products. Chevy has to balance between trucks and sedans. So a \"new\" web design is the start of a lot of internal discussion and that takes time. There is no magic technology that makes all content visible at the same time. \n\n & #x200B;\n\nNext, the big company designs a site but doesn't have the budget to transfer the content. Or they have the budget, but not the required people, which often must be subject matter experts.",
"Because it's not their biggest market, financially. They are better off spending that money on the desktop site, which is where people go if they are serious about the service. The mobile site is used for the most part by casual browsers killing time, so it's a secondary consideration.",
"From my own experience non-tech oriented companies do not out a priority on tech so many times they dont allocated the resources needed to stay current. In addition they struggle to attract top talenr. If you were a hotshot web dev would you rather work for Newsweek or Netflix?"
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967xa7 | how do domesticated pets know they're pregnant, especially that they're not surrounded by a community of themselves who might be familiar with pregnancy? | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/967xa7/eli5_how_do_domesticated_pets_know_theyre/ | {
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"Domesticated animals are much less capable of knowledge than humans, so I'm not sure exactly what you mean by \"know.\" Certainly pregnancy results in a number of physiological changes that can act as triggers for instinctive behavior. ",
"A cat I had apparently didn't know. She started squatting in her kitty litter for the first one. I moved her and when it was out I had to turn her nose around to get a whiff. That's all it took and her instincts took over so she started cleaning it and had several more. She knew to lay down to let them nurse."
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27n5i9 | why aren't we supposed to lock our knees when standing? | I don't understand why it's bad to lock your knees when standing. How else are you supposed to stand? Like you're riding a skateboard?
**edit: thanks guys! just to clarify i actually don't ride skateboards, i was just thinking that skateboarders kind of bend their knees, and i was wondering if i was supposed to stand more like that** | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/27n5i9/eli5_why_arent_we_supposed_to_lock_our_knees_when/ | {
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"It reduces the blood flow to your legs making your muscles do more with less resources. I heard this all through basic training because it was one of the main factors that causes people to pass out while standing at the position of attention. Other factors usually included looking at bright lights and tilting your head back. Not sure why, but the only thing that comes to mind is blood flow. ",
"Med student here. It's (supposedly) bad to lock your knees as that in theory restricts venous return of blood back to the heart. Since veins contain one way valves and are extremely compliant, one good method of returning blood is through muscle contractions. Standing will cause pooling of blood in the lower extremities and with reduced supply to the heart, your cardiac output should decrease which limits the amount of blood going to your brain. Brain becomes hypo-perfused, lacking oxygen it requires, leading to syncope. ",
"I have stood like this everyday for the past 22 1/2 years. I work a job that makes me stand for 12 hours. Why have I never passed out?",
"It blocks blood flow (EDIT: returning from your legs, it starts to pool in your veins) as other people have said, and if you do faint and your knees are locked, you go down face first, with your face going down in an arc onto you nose (seen it many times at cadets), if your knees are straight ish but not locked and you faint, you just crumple and are less likely to fuck your face up. Seen soooo many people break noses/jaws/skin on their faces/chins from locking their knees and not wiggling their ~~feet~~ toes.\n\nBut that is on parade, when you're stationary for a while, day to day won't really do much for short periods.",
"What does \"locking your knees\" mean?",
"when you lock your legs you aren't using your leg muscles, your calves are like big pumps that move blood back up you legs. so if you lock them; the blood collects down there and your brain doesn't have enough causing you to faint.",
"Your arteries are lined with muscles that contract to help keep blood flowing through them. Your veins are not. The veins in your legs have leaflet valves that keep blood from flowing backward through them (like a ratchet, but with liquid) but nothing to keep the blood moving up. The flexing of your leg muscles helps keep the blood moving up against gravity back to the heart. The ability to lock out our legs is a useful ability that allows us to conserve energy while standing bipedally since it drastically reduces the amount of muscle activity necessary to stay upright (apes cannot to this and therefore are not comfortable on two legs for extended periods of time). However, that reduction in muscle activity means worse blood flow out of the legs, this reduces the amount of blood available to the brain. Throw in various factors including environment and health and that can cause you to pass out.\n\nI do lock out my legs when standing for the most part but occasionally slightly bend my knees and wiggle my toes to keep things flowing. It's gotten me through some long formations and inspections in the US Marines but what works for me may not work for you. \n\nEdit for poor thumb typing and formatting. ",
"Most people have covered the blood flow issue. You are also a lot less stable and more prone to injury with your knees locked. \n\nTry this, have you or a friend stand with knees locked. Go up behind the person with the locked knees and give a good push to the back of their knees. This won't hurt them, but it will throw them way off balance most of the time. Then try it without locked knees. \n\nAlso, if you stand with your knees locked and something hits the front of the knee... bye bye knee. At least with it not locked you have a bit of room to maneuver. ",
"I've never heard of this. I guess I've been standing wrong my whole life. ",
"Locking your knees doesn't effect whether to pass out or not. Yes, there is pooling of blood in your lower limbs since you are standing and not moving, but that happens regardless if your knees are locked or not. You can faint if you are dehydrated or low on blood sugar. \n\nWhy you shouldn't lock your knees is because if you do faint, you will fall over like a plank and probably hurt yourself. If your knees are not locked and you faint, your knees bend and you crumble downwards- a safer way to fall. ",
"This was a huge problem in the army. I remember one time Bush came for a brigade inspection so you had to stand in this field with your neutered weapon for like an entire day in the middle of North Carolina. So many people started dropping like flies and all the first sgts were getting super angry because it made them look stupid. \n\n",
"I passed out at a funeral for my brother's classmate's dad because I did this. Everyone thought that I was overcome with grief.",
"During my senior year of HS, a chick passed out during our choir concert. She was on the top row of the risers:( fell forward...thankfully she was ok. Her mom happened to be an EMT and was in the front row. ",
"Cuz it looks weird as fuck. Like you're too lazy to stand normal。",
"When I was in 2nd grade I was in CCD (like Sunday school for Catholics, except not on Sundays), we had a yearly thing called class mass. All it involved was our CCD class standing up on the altar for most of mass on Sunday. We were all dressed up and it was hot up there. I locked my legs standing there trying to be as proper as possible and I passed out. WHAM! I hit the stone altar hard, all while the priest is giving his homily and doesn't notice.\n\nWhat he DOES notice is my 6 ft 5 father leaping over a row of pews and rushing towards the altar. Priest thinks my dad is coming for him and hides behind the pulpit.\n\nAt the next year's class mass I got scolded by the nuns for wiggling my legs too much. I still can't grow hair on the scar on my chin from when I hit the floor to this day.",
"you will pass out and fall down... ouch",
"Orthopaedic surgeon here. None of these people know what they are taking about. Lock your knees all you want. ",
"As far as regular standing goes, I've no idea. However, I have been advised against it when standing for long periods of time (Chorus stuff) due to it being related to losing balance and passing out. Additionally, it's bad for athletic endeavors because your knee will take all of the energy, as opposed to your leg muscles, and could be compromised.",
"From a musculoskeletal perspective. Locking your legs allows you to 'hang' off your joint, and reduce muscle effort. But overtime this passive 'hanging' stretches the joint and it's ligaments, gradually causing joint laxity (leaving you more susceptable to sprains) or genu recurvatum deformity.",
"ELI5= its normal to have a little bend in your legs while you stand. You should feel like you're ready to jump rope at any second.",
"I had knee problems when I was a teenager, and when I went to a physical therapist, it turned out I had been locking my knees back so\\ that they were hyperextended 7 degrees through. I had to wear braces and do various exercises to restore the muscle tone that holds my legs straight - and even today, I have to be conscious of how I stand. Locking your knees can cause a lot of problems for the muscles in your lower half - and so can resting your legs on a coffee table, by the way. Sorry for the anecdote, but I was told at 14 that in another year without change, I wouldn't have been able to walk anymore.",
"What is locking your knees?",
"You are applying all your weight to a single joint/bone, if you are jumping from a high point you can end up breaking something. Same goes with weights training, legs always soft so the weight doesn't crush your joints.",
"I remember the many formations we'd spend hours in while I was in the Military. It never failed that a few people would drop like flies because they locked their knees. Their eyes roll back and just like that they're like a wet noodle",
"From what I understand (I'm no professional, nor do I have much experience in this area), locking your knees cuts off bloodflow. Until recently, I never had troubles with this. However, a few months ago, I fainted from standing like this, and nearly cracked my skull open on some steps.",
"because if i come kick you in the knee it would probably fuck you up",
"Lol I feel like some of these questions are posed by non-humans.",
"TIL I stand wrong...",
"I talked to a Physical Therapist friend once and asked this, I guess when you lock your joints, a lot of pressure is pushed over to tendons and joint structures. So, not only do you have the blood pooling effect that everybody is mentioning, but long term you can wear out joints and tendons. Pressure on these also is bad if you're sitting cross legged, and she mentioned a few others that I forget right now. Essentially, if you can use muscles to do something rather than relying on tendons and bone structures, use them because that's what there job is suppose to be.",
"TIL we aren't supposed to lock our knees when standing.",
"Who's stopping you from standing a little straighter? Stand however you like mate! :)",
"as said a thousand times, it cuts off blood flow, you'll pass out, seen it multiple times standing in formation for hours at a time.",
"My pilates instructor says you shouldn't lock your knees because you use your core muscles and glutes to hold yourself up so you're engaging your core. Otherwise your lower abdominals weaken and you'll end up out of alignment with a sore lower back.",
"I always heard this when I was little. So what did I do?\n\nEvery performance I was ever forced in, every time we had to stand for extended periods of time, I kept my legs locked and tried not to move at all because I wanted to see if I would really pass out. \n\nOver YEARS of trying, it never happened. Never came close. \n\nI do not believe in this myth. ",
"I didn't see it, but when I was in boot camp, some guy locked his knees, passed out, and promptly kissed the deck during our graduation ceremony.",
"Because you pass the fuck out from lack of blood circulation. Was in marching band during highschool, and they always heavily emphasized this when standing for large periods of time. During full retreat every single year, at least 2 people in the band would pass out from locking their knees. ",
"Restricts blood flow.\n\nIn the cadets we were taught that we shouldn't lock our knees and should slightly bend them, otherwise you might faint (something along those lines, I probably some important detail).",
"If you stand with your knee's locked, you can pass out from the lack of blood flow. I've had it happen before, it sucked.",
"You have plenty of answers about why you shouldn't lock your knees, so I'll tell a little story.\n\nIn college I had a professor that was obsessed with his students not locking their knees (drama professor, proper standing balance is important in theatre). He would often sneak up on students and gently push on the back of the knee with his foot. If the student had their knees locked they would stumble/fall as their balance shifted. If your knees were loose then your balance wouldn't change at all as your knees bent and you'd be annoyed, but still standing.\n\nI can't question his methods though, to this day I still don't lock my knees when standing around.",
"I have a life-long history of passing out hilariously from standing up too long (sometimes ten minutes is too long). Here are a few things that make absolutely no difference for me, tested many times:\n\nNot Locking knees.\n\nLocking knees. \n\nChanging breathing patterns in any way.\n\nWriggling toes. \n\nOutright jumping. \n\nIt was so bad that by highschool I was automatically allowed to go sit down/pass out quietly in private when we were having an assembly, no questions asked. I suspect there may be something wrong with my body.",
"dancer here, there's nothing completely wrong with it. In the Dance world knees that lock are a 'gift' and make your lines look stronger and more appealing. With the blood pooling, we don't get that because our legs are above our head half the time we dance",
"Can someone eli5 this thread please? I have know idea what \"lock our knees\" means",
"This thread made me more confused about the subject",
"as a girl who was in my high school choir competition will tell you, you will become light headed and pass out on the bleachers. but mainly i think it has to do with the fact that any time you use a muscle that's where the blood goes and your legs have really big muscles in them so the blood stays there and doesn't circulate as much. less circulation=lightheaded=passing out.",
"English is a lost art. ",
"While standing, having \"locked\" knees can pose a safety risk to the one standing, should they somehow become unconscious, or incapacitated. As said individual falls to the ground, there is a possibility for the person to just fall straight back, or especially forward, in a more rigid fashion, increasing the likelyhood of a head injury. Those with \"unlocked\" knees, seem to fall in a less rigid manner (they crumple), rather than falling like a solid object, hopefully decreasing the severity of any head injuries.\n\nTL;DR: Safety, Yo",
"On a skateboard, bending your knees allows your legs to act as shock absorbers, gives you a lower center of gravity (more stable), and gives a greater ability to shift your weight to steer.\n",
"It's because if the sky ever falls on you, you won't break your knees.",
"because the joint when locked in a straight position, cuts pinches off major veins, so blood and oxygen end up getting trapped below your knees. It messes up the circulation of oxygen in the bloodstream, and ends up leaving the brain with less oxygen, causing you to pass out. Also, because it causes shearing stress on the tendons and socket joint of the knee itself. I have major knee problems from locking my knees out of habbit when I was younger. I also have permanent dizziness as a result.",
"Fuck. Now I'm never going to be able to stand without wondering if I'm standing wrong. Fuck you reddit.",
"In the military, you have to stand at attention/parade rest for long periods of time. People who lock their knees tend to pass out, so they urge you not to do it.",
"I no longer remember how I normally stand. Do I lock my knees? Do I not? This thread is like engaging manual blinking.",
"Mechanical Engineering Explanation: If you lock your knees, your muscles are no longer suspending the joint, and thus any micro-vibrations will pass straight through your cartilage and will wear it down a lot more than if your muscles and tendons allowed for a more elastic network to dissipate these forces. Think wear and tear on a suspension bridge vs. fixed connection in a wind storm. \n",
"Thats one of the first and most important rule they teach you in bootcamp when learning how to stand at attention. DO NOT LOCK YOUR FUCKING KNEES. I saw two trainees lose there grill because of this. You pass the fuck out and most likely your teeth are going to mash on the pavement. ",
"I have personally never heard this. However, locking your knees in a position where there is stress on your legs means that the stress is on your joint rather than on your muscles.\n\nFor example, when you are performing a leg press or squat with weights, you are not supposed to lock the knees as it puts strain on the joints.",
"Here's some anecdotal stuff.\n\nAt my wedding, my father-in-law was in the wedding party meaning he was standing at the altar with us. It was a hot august day, outside, and we were all in suits. He ended up locking his knees. About 15 minutes in, he fell back, passing out and hitting his head on the ground. He had to be rushed to the hospital during our wedding ceremony.\n\nHe was in the army and was always told not to lock his knees, but he figured it would \"never happen to him.\" He's ok now, and we had 3 nurses in the audience, but it could've been really bad if he hit his head in a bad way.",
"When I was little we had to have these concerts where we'd stand and sing for a long time. One kid locked his knees while up there and passed out.",
"The blood in your legs gets recirculated through your body by the movement of your calves. Essentially every time you take a step you pump the blood that is pooling in your lower extremities back towards the heart. Gravity doesn't stop working inside your body, so this pumping is mandatory.\n\nSo if you're standing perfectly still, legs locked you won't have anywhere near the require blood flowing back to your heart.\n\nI'm not sure if the locking is the problem as much as the lack of movement, but it is definitely possible that in the leg-locked position the Vena-Cava is constricted more than otherwise.\n\nEDIT: typo at start.\n",
"When standing in military formation, it is advised not to do so due to the history of persons passing out during long time frames. Would you like to know why they pass out? They pass out not due to their locked limbs, but due to lack of air. Holidng their breath whilst puffing out their chest for formation/inspection seems like a good idea... at first. If your doing muster or standing watch, it doesnt hurt yourself to look sharp, but just remember to breathe. ",
"Because your best friend will walk behind you and tap the back of your knees making you fall flat on your face",
"This is just my opinion but if you lock your knees it makes it easier for someone to knock you over and I think it's bad for your knees",
"I guess this explains why some kids passed out in the 'morning openings' at the school. We had a small event like that in grade school every Friday that lasted about half an hour. Kids always had to stand there and it wasn't very uncommon for someone to pass out. It was usually the \"good kids\" too that took orders very seriously. ",
"They used to tell us not to lock your knees while standing when I was in grade school choir. One time we were preforming at a concert, and a girl in the back row fainted. Her knees were locked apparently, and she fell forward, taking out the three rows of singers below her. "
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3cqycl | how did donald trump end up with so much money? | He obviously inherited a good chunk, but I've heard all sorts of tales about how (and how well) he handled his money after that: "He would be worth more if he had just put his money in the stock market"; "He took advantage of the bankruptcy system"; "He made back his money by selling his name"; etc., but I don't have a clear picture of what exactly he did and whether he's an incompetent buffoon, a devilishly shrewd businessman, or something else. So I'd like to get a clear picture of how he got to where he is, so I know in what ratio I ought to be despising/mocking him. | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/3cqycl/eli5_how_did_donald_trump_end_up_with_so_much/ | {
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"he made a business of getting investors to pay for a building to be built, called trump hotel, tower, ect. he didnt use his own money that had been used up with a previous failure. so he goes to people a b and c, and asks each for a million bucks. b and c agree. he uses that million, tells a \"hey a, ive got 2 million bucks, give me another million and ill make a building worth 6 million\" so a goes along with it, because who doesnt want to double their money? then trump takes out a cut, builds the towers, and promises a b and c their money back, afte he gets tenants. if the building doesnt get tenants, then he files for bankruptcy, and loses a b and c's money, but he gets to keep the chunk he had taken out. rinse and repeat.\nedit: if he does get tenants for the building, then he says, \"A b and c, i have made you money, now i wish to put up another building, but i need 2 million each\" and he keeps going like this, making more money by taking out a cut each time. ",
"He's a decent businessman and a great salesman. And by far his most valuable asset is himself. He's been able to build and sell an image that makes other people want to buy his products and rent/buy his properties. \n\nIt's very hard to make a profit selling undifferentiated goods, it's easy if what you sell carries an advantage. If consumers are willing to pay 5% more for a Trump suit or to stay in a Trump hotel than go to an undifferentiated alternative, then that 5% is pure profit. \n\nIn business you make money by limiting supply, and Trump has a monopoly on the use of his name. And for good and bad, the Trump brand carries a lot of value in many markets. \n\nIt's the same basic reason why music starts and actors who know nothing about business are able to make money selling branded clothes and accessories. People pay more for the same things because of the brand they're associated with. ",
"He inherited a fortune from his father. Forbes points out that his net worth is likely half of what he claims. That means that if he'd stuck his inheritance in a mutual fund he'd be worth more today. He's a shit businessman.",
"I heard he protects the Trump name and owns another company named something else. If something he does is successful, its Trump enterprises all the way. When something starts failing, he 'sells' it to the other business, and the flawless Trump record remains 'successful'.\n\nThat, and he started with daddies 200 million. "
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87zvzl | how does ovulation work? what are 'safe days' and 'fertile days'? | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/87zvzl/eli5_how_does_ovulation_work_what_are_safe_days/ | {
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"Fertile days are the ones just before, during and just after ovulation, about 3-5 days depending on your cycle. It's the time you're most likely to get pregnant. Ovulation is when one of your ovaries releases an egg to your uterus. Safe days are the ones you are less likely to get pregnant. The most safe days will be just before you menstruate. Be aware that you could possibly still get pregnant on safe days, it's just less likely. ",
"This video gives a bit of explanation as to what is happening when during your cycle... \n_URL_0_",
"If you don't want a kid, then you should probably use other more effective means of birth control such as condoms. Tracking your ovulation is fine if you're in a committed relationship and are prepared for what may happen if you track it wrong or the cycle is off for a month. "
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3e1cpt | why isn't the white house flag at half staff following the tn shootings? | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/3e1cpt/eli5_why_isnt_the_white_house_flag_at_half_staff/ | {
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"short answer is it's unclear. They lowered after Fort Hood, but don't usually lower federally for soldiers killed in line of duty. \n\n_URL_0_"
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5ahxbr | why was the morse code discontinued? | It seems very versatile, not just for telegrams but for secret messaging and transmission of knowledge with just visuals. | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/5ahxbr/eli5_why_was_the_morse_code_discontinued/ | {
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"Morse code became obsolete when people found ways to transmit voice over radio/wire. As for the \"secret\" messages - they are not really secret, since anyone who knows the Morse code can decode them. And there are easier, more secure way of sending secret information than Morse Code. For individuals, it isn't really worth the effort learning it (unless its your hobby or something).",
"Why don't we write on stone tablets instead of paper? Because the alternative is better.\n\nMorse was OK when it was literally the only option, but now we've got plenty of better ways to send a message, none of which require me to learn something special that I don't already know.\n\nFor a while, morse was still in use in situations where you couldn't get decent enough radio signal to get a message through, but with the advent of satellite communications even that usage is disappearing.\n\nIt's still used in certain fields - some radio amateurs use it (but probably because they can rather than because they need to), plus certain automated devices including some aircraft navigational beacons will report certain information using morse.",
"It *hasn't* been discontinued, and is alive and well in Ham Radio.\n\nIt's absolutely terrible for secrecy. Never do that. But for narrow bandwidth, great."
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1q0sny | why the king of hearts (also known as the suicide king), is more often than not, depicted having a sword through his head | [Here's](_URL_0_) an example of 4 seperate card decks with the suicide king, including the King of Hearts from both The Simpson's and Futurama's decks (Although in the Simpsons deck, The jack of hearts is responsible for the barrel of the gun).
Does anyone know why this is a recurring thing? Just Google image search "King of Hearts" and you will see many different decks with this happening.
Maybe I will have to try /r/askhistory. | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/1q0sny/eli5_why_the_king_of_hearts_also_known_as_the/ | {
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"In the 15th century, the French had given names to each of the kings: the King of Hearts was King Charles, AKA Charlamagne.\n\nHowever, him stabbing himself in the head originates after this. Only references I can find is that the deck images in use now are French designs, easier to copy with a block than the more elaborate German designs which were popular previously.\n\nThat said, I can't find any references to why he is stabbing himself, or why there are one-eyed Jacks either. Most likely, they just couldn't fit the sword in vertically and they made it look much like he was swinging it.",
"I don't know how true this is, but I heard the suicide kind isn't actually stabbing himself. It is actually the knife of the Queen of Spades. The evidence is in the sleeves and the way each card is facing. In truth, he is actually being murdered. \n\nCheckout this site. The theory is well-explained here.\n_URL_0_",
"No proof or source, but I've always understood it that he was drawing or preparing to swing the sword",
"He wants to die because he can't grow a sweet 'stache like his bros.",
"The sword is behind his head, like he is about to swing it. It would be pretty ineffective to kill yourself by trying to stab through the side of your head.\n\nSuicide king is just a nickname from how it appears, and many people who make novelty deads keep up with the theme.",
"I'm not sure about the origins, but I've always understood the suits to represent different classes of society, or lifestyle motivations? God now that I'm typing it I realize my ideas are totally fuzzy. Good question.",
"According to [this source](_URL_0_), there is no story or history behind the design; it looks like it was just a series of adjustments made by publishers over the years to cram as much of the original 16th century design into the smaller and smaller cards...",
"from the research i have done on traditional playing cards, i would say that the answer to this question is lost in history. from a time when playing cards were considered to be a luxury for the upper class, to when they become more readily available in part by advances in printmaking technology, the reproductions had slowly but surely become significantly rendered to the point where such symbolism delineated from its original intent. there are some sources which tell of Charlamagne as the king of hearts, but the descriptors of each suit are too vague to be certain. ",
"In your example the latter two were developed way after the \"phrase\" suicide king\" was in place so as a novelty deck are just playing off the pre-existing lore of the card. \n\nwhile the [King of Spades](_URL_1_) and[ King of Clubs](_URL_0_) are the same holding a sword vertically the [King of Diamonds](_URL_2_) has an axe behind him (though no fancy name)\n\nthe King of hearts is also holding a knife/sword but *behind* his head like he's about to swing it. and i think that's the end of it there. 4 kings 3 different poses, and since wherever they originate became ***the*** style for cards it's represented everywhere. \n\nat some point someone looked at that and said \"hey it looks like he's putting a knife in his own head. after which i'm sure tales were made up of why it was like that and theories etc when really the original artist just wanted to mix it up in the graphics. ",
"As a related ELI5, I'm having trouble finding online who is responsible for the most recognizable (at least in america) playing card royal faces? For example, both kings in OP's link look pretty much the same, with minor differences- the style of dress looks like it could be 18th century perhaps? \n\nI've found that 16th century Parisians are responsible for aesthetic we're most familiar with today, but who first gave us the zoomed-in portrait of the King, Queen and Jack, with their curly hair and heavy mascara, that are well-known today? Was it just some designer at Bicycle? ",
"Also, why is he the only king without a [mustache](_URL_0_)?",
"I always thought the sword was just going behind his head. ",
"He doesn't. It's behind his head. The reason it's behind his head is that he was holding it up in the original drawings, while the other kings had their weapons vertical.\n\nThe modern English design (double sided Monarchs) is based on the French design from the 15-16th century. In the original drawings, the red cards were holding axes and the black ones had swords. \n\nLater copies were more distorted. Within a hundred years (especially in England) the king was holding the axe behind his head, and by the 19th century, the King's Axe been made to look like the hilt of a sword by shoddy copy-artists. The phrase \"suicide king\" came from people who looked at the design afterwards.\n\nThe modern design is the double-sided English design from as recent as the 19th century. The earlier English designs (very similar, but dating back to the 16th century) were single sided. \n\n*edit:I looked up the names. Thomas De La Rue, a printing pioneer, used his fancy printing to make the shoddy copy designs much more intricate. It seems most of the 19th century designs are specifically a ripoff of HIS much fancier ripoffs of earlier crap. Modern designs ripoff the company Reynolds, who printed the first double ended design in 1860, which was about 30-40 years after the single-sided De La Rue versions became popular. There wasn't much intellectual property law back then. Also, pictures!*\n\n\n\n\n_URL_1_\n\n\nHere you can see an example of a shoddy copy that caused confusion.\n\n_URL_0_\n\nGoogle *Rouen playing cards* and you can find more on the history of the design.\n\n\n",
"I'm a bit confused. I always understood/assumed that 'suicide' was more or less a nickname for a card, but I though it was in reference to the orientation of the blade to the head (blade facing head→suicide 【card】). So to me the King of Diamonds is also a suicide king. Was I the only one taught this?",
"Offtopic but interesting .. King of hearts is the only king without a mustache too",
"As person from east german, i can only laugh about the french design!\nReally cards look like this:\n\n[Altenburger Blatt](_URL_1_)\n\n[Old Design, more Pics](_URL_0_)\n\nall fun and easy :D",
"/u/blockplanner already explained this perfectly, but here's on article on _URL_0_ (they sell lots and lots of playing cards) that covers the same thing.\n\n[_URL_1_](_URL_2_)\n",
"I do know that the King of Clubs and King of Diamonds are called the Kissing Kings cause when you open up a new deck they are facing each other in the standard order.\n\nI'm guessing that the real answer is probably that there are only so many ways to draw a King in a different pose so that you can easily tell them apart quickly and the King of Hearts ended up in that funky position.",
"All this talk of swords through heads makes me think of Finland's coat of arms. _URL_0_\n_URL_1_",
"It's because he's married to the Queen of Hearts. Imagine the implications of that and you might want to kill yourself too.",
"I believe the ending of G Gundam explains it best. Spoilers, obviously.\n\n_URL_0_"
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1qplad | why do the vast majority of government websites look old and outdated? | Adding on to this question, since their design was funded in the first place, why aren't they updated? | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/1qplad/eli5_why_do_the_vast_majority_of_government/ | {
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"Changes in design require new funding. Web development for the government doesn't run cheap - you have tons of regulation that has to be dealt with in addition to normal development.\n\nThey will probably at minimum need to have a Project Manager (100-150K salary), Frontend Web Developer (65-100K salary), Backend Developer (80-120K salary), and QA Engineer (65-90K Salary). Chances are there would be two to three Web Developers, two QA engineers, and maybe two Backend Developers if at all possible. That's my ideal web dev team for something that has to be robust. Sometimes you can get front and backend together, but realistically they should be separate.\n\nSo to update that website, there has to be enough demand and need for updated visuals/functionality for the Department to request the funds, and for Congress to approve those funds. Based on the minimum possible salaries, you're looking at close to 500K+ *per year* to get that website redone.\n\nLikely a lot of government websites don't see the levels of traffic necessary to make such a decision.",
"Government websites are not usually created by government employees but government contractors. These contractors participate in the bid process where the choice is based on two categories. 1) Cheapest bid, 2) Most documentation.\n\nThe project managers have to provide reams of data and scope documents explaining the process, risks involved, how the site will function, etc. It would seem logical to map out everything before you start, so you will know what it will cost and the time it would take. Unfortunately, predicting how long the process will take, resources used, and potential risks is not such an exact science. Also, creating anything innovative requires trial and error and quick thinking. This type of development is very hard to predict. Government employees are not known for taking any risks, so they want to know their ass is covered.\n\nSo contractors promise very vanilla solutions with the least risk (which are usually outdated), so that they can get through the bid process to get the job in the first place. \n\nIf contractors were hired to do the job without having to EXACTLY predict cost and time before you start, then they might have the freedom to develop something more cutting edge. In the corporate world, there is project management and design principals to predict costs, but it does not deter from innovation because they are not competing.\n"
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no118 | the third prong on an electrical plug | I know it's called a ground plug, and I know that it's a safety measure, but beyond that I don't know why it's there and why it's better to have one. | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/no118/eli5_the_third_prong_on_an_electrical_plug/ | {
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"I took this from my physics class (15 years old) what it does, assuming their was a fault like an opencircuit and the resistance sky rockets, then you were to touch it your body has less resistance than the open circuit so you get electrocuted, but the Earth wire has a resistance less than you so it flows through there, I'm guessing it has a higher resistance than the wires though. Correct me if I am wrong. ",
"When you touch 2 wires together this creates a short circuit. A short circuit causes the electricity to flow real fast until a fuse or circuit breaker interrupts the flow. A ground is an \"escape\" for the excess electricity giving it a path to escape.\n\nIf a electronic or appliance develops an internal short circuit, this has the potential to shock you while you're using it. If the appliance is grounded, the excess electricity escapes through the ground.\n\nElectricity follow the path of least resistance, which is why a ground works, it lets is escape and disappate into the earth or your cars frame for example.",
"I usually refer people to this link which is funny, simple, and easy to read.\n\n_URL_0_",
"I took this from my physics class (15 years old) what it does, assuming their was a fault like an opencircuit and the resistance sky rockets, then you were to touch it your body has less resistance than the open circuit so you get electrocuted, but the Earth wire has a resistance less than you so it flows through there, I'm guessing it has a higher resistance than the wires though. Correct me if I am wrong. ",
"When you touch 2 wires together this creates a short circuit. A short circuit causes the electricity to flow real fast until a fuse or circuit breaker interrupts the flow. A ground is an \"escape\" for the excess electricity giving it a path to escape.\n\nIf a electronic or appliance develops an internal short circuit, this has the potential to shock you while you're using it. If the appliance is grounded, the excess electricity escapes through the ground.\n\nElectricity follow the path of least resistance, which is why a ground works, it lets is escape and disappate into the earth or your cars frame for example.",
"I usually refer people to this link which is funny, simple, and easy to read.\n\n_URL_0_"
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j2grc | can someone explain stimulus package (like i'm 5)? | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/j2grc/can_someone_explain_stimulus_package_like_im_5/ | {
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"Governments pay for projects, (like new highways or theatres,) so that more people can have jobs.\n\nThen more people will have money to spend, which will make more jobs for other people, (like shoemakers and dentists,) and soon enough people will be spending money and the government can start collecting saving tax money for the next economic downturn."
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1vgats | how is a spacecraft going to land on a meteor | I have been hearing a lot lately about new space probes landing on meteors. How is it possible that something that is moving so much faster than a planet and is also of a much smaller size can have any sort of gravitational pull for a probe to land on it. Some of the terminology I'm using is definitely off also. | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/1vgats/eli5_how_is_a_spacecraft_going_to_land_on_a_meteor/ | {
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"There doesn't have to be significant gravitational pull - the probe will essentially fly up alongside and match velocities so that it ends up touching the meteor. This is very similar to a spacecraft docking at the space station.",
"The exact same way we land on the moon or dock with the ISS. \nmoon (around the earth) = 3680 km per hour.\nEarth (around the sun) 107,300 km/h.\nSpace shuttle (at max vel) 28,003 km/h.\nIts all relative to the point of observation. \nIf the moon is flying around the earth at 3680 km an hour you slowly accelerate and move into its trajectory. Then it will be like you are both standing still. \n\nThink about the relative position of things. The earth is moving 107,300 km/h around the sun. Guess what ? So are you!!!! \nIf you think in terms of the universe we are moving WAY faster than that, spining around the galaxy, even faster with the milky way expanding outwards with the universe expansion. "
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329x7a | what happens when we get "butterflys" in our stomach? | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/329x7a/eli5_what_happens_when_we_get_butterflys_in_our/ | {
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"When you're nervous, your body floods with adrenaline. It's known as the fight-or-flight response as your body gets ready to react whatever way it needs to a danger. \n\nOne of the things that happens is your body reduces blood flow to nonessential organs and increases the blood flow to your muscles. For the short time you're likely to be in danger, your stomach is nonessential and the sudden reduction in blood flow and the consequent reduction in digestion is what you're feeling as 'butterflies'."
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||
3ep5rc | why do extreme temperatures make me lethargic? | My AC is been out for a couple of days and its 100 degrees out. All I wanna do is loaf around. Same when its really cold. What up with that? | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/3ep5rc/eli5_why_do_extreme_temperatures_make_me_lethargic/ | {
"a_id": [
"cth1vjq"
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"It takes a lot of energy for your body to either heat itself up or cool itself down. Leaves less energy for things like exercise... which will in turn only heat you up further. Shivering when you're cold is a way for your body to generate heat by using your muscles. High temperatures cause considerable increases in your heart rate and respiration - to circulate your blood from your core to the surface where it can expel heat. "
]
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[]
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|
9vohww | why are fertility rates decreasing? | [deleted] | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/9vohww/eli5_why_are_fertility_rates_decreasing/ | {
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"text": [
"People are having less babies. Infant mortality dropped, women have other things to do than just parent, we have birth control. We can control when we get pregnant, and we don't need large families the way we use to.\n\nFertility rates aren't decreasing in a Handsmaid Tale way. We have a bunch of techniques for getting pregnant.",
"Mainly due to a lack of interest in making babies combined with good technological means of getting sexual gratification without making babies (condoms, the pill, ect)."
]
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[],
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|
1wwcvf | how do they show events that have not happened yet on t.v.? (ads for the opening ceremonies in sochi) | I was watching a commercial for the Olympics in Sochi that Start on Thursday and they had footage from the opening ceremonies like the torch being lit and countries walking in the stadium and being introduced. How do they do that if these events have not happened yet? | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/1wwcvf/eli5how_do_they_show_events_that_have_not/ | {
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"text": [
"That's footage from past Winter Olympics, not Sochi. ",
"It's footage from past Olympics, or footage taken from dress rehearsals, etc.",
"Sometimes they show archived footage from previous events. Sometimes they travel through time."
]
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[],
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49s9tr | when did wearing the jersey of your favorite sports team become popular, and why? | Edit: I should have been more clear, I meant why as in why did it become popular. | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/49s9tr/eli5_when_did_wearing_the_jersey_of_your_favorite/ | {
"a_id": [
"d0uh4o0"
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"text": [
"Showing support for your team has been a thing for a long time. I don't think that's changed appreciably in the last several decades.\n\nWhat has changed has been the availability of jerseys and the acceptability of wearing them in public. We've spent the last 50-60 years getting less formal & less rigid about dress codes in general.\n\nThe rise of hip hop music/fashion has probably also contributed a fair bit."
]
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|
6kl2hr | is there no discernable brain activity that would allow us to read what a person is thinking? | If not, how come? | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/6kl2hr/eli5_is_there_no_discernable_brain_activity_that/ | {
"a_id": [
"djmwjxi"
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"text": [
"We can detect which parts of the brain are lighting up, if the person is in an MRI, but not what memories, words, or images they are actually picturing. Brains are mindboggingly complex, and there is no one spot responsible for every word, image, or thought. If I think of a dog, it's not going to light up my brain the same way as when YOU think of a dog. It will even be different if I think of a different dog."
]
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[]
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|
2io6vx | the difference between the domain controller and an active directory. | This always confuses me, so I would appreciate the help. Thanks! | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/2io6vx/eli5_the_difference_between_the_domain_controller/ | {
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"Active directory is the place where information about people and organizations are stored and accessed. The domain controller is the host(s) on the network that _manage_ membership within the network, often using active directory as it's source of rights, permissions etc. The domain controller is the air traffic control tower, active directory holds all the flight schedules. In practice on small networks they reside on the same network device/server."
]
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[]
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|
1tn9jy | why do american trucks and european trucks look so different? | After playing Euro Truck Simulator, I noticed that Euro trucks are flat in the front and don't have noses, where American trucks have long noses. | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/1tn9jy/eli5why_do_american_trucks_and_european_trucks/ | {
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"Hahaha I WAS wondering, is this guy playing that trucking game? ETS2 is my current gaming addiction, I can't stop playing.\n\nAnyway it's mostly vehicle length regulations. For a while America had similar, either on a state-by-state or federal basis, I can't remember; one can still see older trucks of that design puttering around. Example: Peterbilt 362, Kenworth K100\n\nThe term for them is COE, Cab-Over-Engine. Advantages include better visibility from the cab, and better maneuverability. Disadvantages are a rougher ride since the driver sits right over the front axle, decreased safety for lack of a crumple zone in front, poorer aerodynamics. \n",
"American regulations that stipulate the maximum length of the vehicle measure the length of the truck and trailer separately, so there is no penalty for building a longer truck, within reason. European regulations measure them as a single unit. Because of this, the trucks themselves must be shorter, so that the length of the trailer (and therefore capacity) can be maximized."
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54w75b | why exactly are whole life insurance policies considered scams? | Almost everything I've read recently has said not to purchase and/or contribute to the policy. Doesn't the cash value grow within the policy as you contribute to it? | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/54w75b/eli5_why_exactly_are_whole_life_insurance/ | {
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"The school of thought that calls them expensive has several solid points in their favor:\n\n* Insurance is supposed to protect the buyer against risks that would wipe them out financially. Life insurance makes a lot of sense when its on a sole breadwinner (protecting a spouse who is staying at home to raise the children and whose earning power is lower). However, once the children are gone and the home is paid off, maintaining the same level of insurance isn't always prudent. Term plans allow adjustment (or dropping coverage all together) in this case, while whole life plans maintain the more costly coverage. \n* Whole life plans are a sort of bundle, and many buyers might be better off picking the parts of the bundle they prefer. As a simple comparison, how does the cash value compare with buying a term policy and investing the difference in premiums? \n* Especially in the golden years, whole life plans tend to be priced to cover the needs of those wishing to use the plan for estate planning purposes, which makes them quite expensive for anyone whose estate is less than the minimum threshold of the estate tax. ",
"Only buy enough coverage for what you need, a hybrid policy is best. Have a term for X years while you have a mortgage etc, then after it goes to a lower reasonable coverage. Ofcourse you should shop around and see what rate are best. some policies can be paid off in 20yrs and not have to pay a dime after. plan early so you dont have to worry."
]
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eko88x | why do anime characters have to yell the name of their move? | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/eko88x/eli5why_do_anime_characters_have_to_yell_the_name/ | {
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"fdcr94l"
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"text": [
"It's so that the \"move\" is identifiable to the audience. Think about how many kids have tried the \"kamehamaha way\" irl. Do you think that happened by accident? That kind of playground nonsense is what keeps shows like dbz and powerrangers popular."
]
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||
86o7k6 | sperm competition | Im aware that sperm compete to get to the egg, but what im wondering is how is this helpful? wouldnt this just promote males that produce fast sperm but potentially have less than adequate genes or does having fast sperm correlate to good genes? | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/86o7k6/eli5_sperm_competition/ | {
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"I may be wrong, but I'm pretty sure it doesn't have much of an effect between males, but it is this way because then the healthiest, usually the fastest, will reach the egg first. So it has less to do with intraspecies competition and more with trying to ensure the health of any given offspring.",
"Sperm from the same man don't really compete with each other. It only takes one to fertilize the egg, but the reason a male releases millions of them is to increase the chances that one of them will make it. Some of them die along the way.\n\nIf the female mated with other males around the same time, releasing more sperm also increases the chances that one of yours will make it, and not the other guy's. So, they could compete with another male's sperm, but not with each other.",
"Better genes = Genes that result in progeny. In short, it would be helpful at passing on better genes.",
"Evolution does not need to be helpful. Evolution does not try to be helpful. Evolution is an emergent effect that happens as a result of things that copy themselves being more likely to exist. Nature doesn't care about being helpful, it just does things. Often helpful things get copied more often, because \"helpful\" means they help you survive more, but sometimes they don't.\n\nIf faster sperm are more likely to get the egg, then more babies will be born from faster sperm. If the sperm carry their speediness in their genetic code, then those babies will grow up into men with faster sperm.\n\nSame for any other sort of attribute sperm might have like \"healthiness\" or \"longevity\" that make them more likely to get the egg. It doesn't matter if it's helpful to anyone, it just happens."
]
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xuaca | when i sneeze i only sneeze once or twice, my so sneezes up to seven times. elif why does this happen? | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/xuaca/when_i_sneeze_i_only_sneeze_once_or_twice_my_so/ | {
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"Most likely, you are sneezing with more force than your SO is. Sneezing is a way of removing irritants from the nasal passages, whether this be pollen, dust, cat hair, etc. If you are sneezing at 40mph, and your SO is sneezing at 10mph, it will take more sneezes to dislodge whatever is irritating his or her nasal passages.\n\nThe other possibility is that your SO's nasal passages are more irritated by allergens and pollutants, so this causes his or her nasal passages to react more violently. Think of it this way: sneezes are essentially muscle reflex, similar to any other muscle in your body. If someone hits you in the leg with a roll of wrapping paper, it will hurt very little if at all. If someone hits you in the leg with a baseball bat, you will have a strong reaction both in emotions and in physical pain.\n\nIf the same happens with sun-sneezes, then it is psychological rather than physical, because people get used to sneezing a certain amount of times no matter what the cause."
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3mtq8n | why do car lock remotes not lock/unlock other cars within their range? | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/3mtq8n/eli5_why_do_car_lock_remotes_not_lockunlock_other/ | {
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"Both the remote and the car use a pseudo-random number generator with the same seed. A psuedo-random number isn't truly random, but acts like it. Two computers with the same seed number and using the same random function will generate the same sequence of \"random\" numbers.\n\nWhen you press your remote, it sends the next number in it's sequence to the car. On your remote, it assumes that the request was received and puts the next random number in memory. In the car, if it gets the signal, it checks to see if that was the number it was expecting. If it is, the car unlocks and it puts the next number in memory.\n\nIf you press your remote and you are out of range, the car doesn't get the number it's expecting. When you get closer, it gets the 2nd, 3rd, or maybe even the 20th number *after* the one it was expecting. Once your car gets that number and it is in a list of next available numbers, it skips the ones that were missed.\n\nBasically, all the cars in range of your remote have a list of codes they are expecting from their remotes.\n\nCar A's list is (simplified): 75, 23, 145, 87, 33, 14, 56, 47, 13, 88\n\nCar B's list is : 132, 99, 12, 65, 59, 39, 162, 74, 63, 28\n\nYou have car A. The code in your remote is 75. When you click unlock, your remote sends \"75\" then moves to \"23\". Your car gets \"75\" and unlocks, and *it* moves to 23.\n\nCar B also heard \"75\" but that number isn't it's list of possible codes, so it just ignores it. It's still waiting for \"132\".\n\nJoe comes along who owns car B. He click's his remote which sends \"132\" but he's out of range. His remote moves to \"99\". He tries again and sends \"99\". Still out of range, and the remote moves to \"12\". He tries again, his remote sends \"12\" and moves to \"65\". This time his car hears \"12\". It was expecting \"132\" but 12 *is* in the list of valid codes so it unlocks. His car now advances the list to \"65\" and his car and the remote are now in sync.\n\nYour car was still nearby and heard all of Joe's codes, but none of the numbers he sent were in your car's list so they were ignored.\n\nThat's a simplified example, as the codes are actually 40-bit numbers or larger, so the chances of any two cars having the same number in their \"list\" are extremely remote. Not impossible, but so unlikely as to probably never happen in the history of mankind. And even if it did, by chance, the next number in sequence would be different.\n\n"
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1pbx9k | how does frostbite destroy and permanently damage flesh? and how do you know if you get it? | I feel like I have had mild cases of frostbite, where my hands would be hot once they are in a controlled environment, and my fingers look like they are swollen. | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/1pbx9k/eli5_how_does_frostbite_destroy_and_permanently/ | {
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"I'm no medical expert, but my understanding is as follows:\n\nFrostbite is caused when tissue freezes after prolonged exposure. As your body cools, blood is drawn away from extremities such as fingers or toes and concentrated in the core to protect vital organs. This drawing away, coupled with a constriction in the blood vessels in extremities, contribute to the beginning of frostbite as the ambient temperature fall\n\nThe tissues freeze and this causes cellular damage, as water expands when it freezes - this is part of the reason human cryogenics is not yet a true reality because nobody has yet figured how to freeze living tissue without causing damage. \n\nMild frostbite, also called frost nip, concerns damage to the upper layers of skin. Second degree begins to go deeper and typically presents with extensive blistering, with third and forth degree being the point where amputation is going to be likely due to level of damage caused to muscle and nerves. When people say 'frostbite' they are thinking of the latter stages.\n\nFrom what you said, you don't have frost bite per say, but take care of your hands. They should be fine soon enough but if not consult a doctor. \n"
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4pxvnc | why do high-end restaurants do not show pictures of their food in their menu? | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/4pxvnc/eli5_why_do_highend_restaurants_do_not_show/ | {
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"From what I've heard, food is very difficult to photograph well. That's why there are people who's job it is to set up food for photography. I've seen some restaurants around here that tried to do it themselves, and it looks terrible in the picture. ",
"I'm married to a chef. The wow factor on presentation is important to him, and would be ruined if everyone knew how their food was going too look before it came out.\n\nFlexibility is important as well. If the kitchen is slammed, no one is going to have time to check against the menu picture to make sure the food matches perfectly.",
"In addition to the good answers already provided..... \n\n When I worked in 'fine dining' restaurants, they used lots of veggies and fruits 'in season', so the dish would change throughout the year. \n\n Also, different head/sous chefs have their own versions of the same dish (ingredients, sauce and presentation) The head chefs I've worked for would NOT make an entree to match a photo just because it's on the menu and quality menus aren't cheap to print. They consider their work art (which I agree with) and would be insulted.\n\nNow that the Internet's here, most fine dining restaurants include a photo or two of their signature dish(es) to showcase their presentation. They're not often labeled and can easily be swapped out (much cheaper than changing menus)",
"Expensive food is made to impress you. Cheap food is made just to get by. I feel like pictures make inexpensive food more liable so you can order it without wondering what the heck is this gonna be like? Where as expensive food gives you the same confidence as a picture for the fact that you're paying more to make sure its something good.",
"There's the other factor nobody is discussing, which is that having pictures of the food wastes menu space and makes for complicated and ugly layout. ",
"I've actually been through this back and forth with a chef during a website redesign process where she and one of the owners were basically in an argument with one of the other owners about how much photography to show on the website. There's a very strong association of food photos on a menu to things like plastic diner menus. It's not considered high-class.\n\nAlso, as far as the actual menu goes, the more high-end the restaurant the simpler and sleeker the menu tends to be. There's no where to /put/ pictures on the actual menu itself.",
"At higher end places, the presentation of a dish might change on a chef's whim, and most use seasonal veggies so the pictures likely wouldn't be accurate at all. Also, places like that change their menu regularly (mine changed menus once a week), and taking new pictures and printing photos is a waste of time and expenses. "
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4jz93s | why does ~x = -x - 1? | I've always been confused about why the bitwise negation `~` of any number `x` equals `-x - 1`.
Should the bitwise negation flip each bit from 1 to 0 and vice versa?
For example, `~10 = -11`, but the binary representation of `10` is `1010` and the binary representation of `-11` is `-1011`?
How come that works? | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/4jz93s/eli5why_does_x_x_1/ | {
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"In binary math, for most systems, we use what is called Two's complement. It is a way to eliminate the possibility of a positive and negative 0.\n\nThe highest bit (the left-most bit in a binary sequence) is the sign bit. If it is 1, it is a negative number. If it is 0, it is either 0 or a positive number.\n\nIf you were to flip 0, and we didn't do this, you'd end up with all 1s. Instead of having to check between 2 different versions of 0 (one 'negative' and one 'positive'), it is more efficient to just check against one version. This gives an extra integer to use and still works out to correct answers when using binary math (addition and subtraction) without requiring conversion.",
" > For example, ~10 = -11, but the binary representation of 10 is 1010 and the binary representation of -11 is -1011?\n\nRemember that we're not using simple binary, we're evaluating a particular data type (signed integer), which- in the simple case- always uses the same number of digits (bits).\n\nAn 8-bit signed integer ranges from 0000 0000 to 1111 1111, right? The convention we use is that 0000 0000 is 0; 0000 0001 is one, and so on, until we get to 0111 1111, which is 127; after that, with 1000 0000, we jump to (or, the way it's better to think about it, loop around to) -128. And then comes 1000 0001, which is -127, and so on.\n\nThe upshot of all this is that, except for that weirdness between 127 and -128, adding 0000 0001 (ie, 1) to any byte value gives you the same answer as adding 1 to the matching number. (You may have to dump a carry digit from the 128s place.)",
"Suppose you had a counter that had four digits. If it's on 9999 and you add one more, it rolls over to 0000. So you could say that one less than 0000 is 9999. And if you want to multiply something by negative one, you have to find the number you add to it to get 0000. If you subtract each digit from 9, then you get the number you add to it to get 9999, so if you add one more you get 0000.\n\nThis is basically what computers do, except with binary instead of decimal. And you subtract digits from 1 instead of 9. And that's just notting them, so it's easier."
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58h2bv | why pens appear 'bendy' | As a kid we always used to do that thing where you hold a pen/pencil between your index finger and thumb and 'wobble' it, why when you do this does the pen appear to 'bend' back and forth, even though it is rigid and is obviously staying straight, it is that our eyes simply can't keep up, or something more? | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/58h2bv/eli5_why_pens_appear_bendy/ | {
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"Believe it or not, like a camera, our brain has a \"frame rate\" or amount of information we can take in per second and process. It's about 15 f/s. (Side note: any motion slower than that doesn't really seem smooth to us.)\n\nSince our minds take in information in this finite way, filling in spaces as it needs to for the perception of motion, we can get fooled by motion blur, like a pencil wiggling, if it's at certain speeds. That's why when you're doing the trick, you need to get it just right: too slow, and it looks stiff, too fast, and it's the same as a fan blade spinning.\n\nThere's also something to be said for the fact that to do the trick, you need to keep the middle in the same place. This makes it seem like there's a point at which the pencil bends, a point of reference for our eyes. \n\nHope that helped ",
"This illusion is due to a strobe effect. It is the same phenomenon that makes a helicopter's blades look like they are spinning slowly on video. Another example is a wheel spinning backwards. In videos it happens because the object is turning at near the same rate as the camera captures frames. Now in real life, any light that flickers can create this effect too. Old TVs and fluorescent light tubes flicker really fast. Your brain glosses over those moments of darkness so the light appears to be constant, but you can easily see the strobe effect it produces on your pen when you wave it quickly. Your brain tries to piece together the short glimpses it gets of the pen, but it's not perfect so the pen looks bent."
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2x9egw | why is society so averse to people taking their own lives? | I mean I understand the social stigma around suicide, but with the /r/videos post on the front page showing a guy getting shot to "save his life", I can't help but wonder why a society would make it illegal to claim one's own life. | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/2x9egw/eli5_why_is_society_so_averse_to_people_taking/ | {
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"Because we are wired to want to live. Things like fear and 'flight or fight' mechanisms were evolved to help us survive and stay alive. So when someone wants to kill themselves something is \"off.\" The vast majority of people that end up killing themselves have a mental illness . So a person that wants to kill themselves has over come the will to live plus probably has a mental illness meaning their ability to rationalize their actions is compromised. So as a rational society we have deemed suicide to be irrational. ",
"because the state-corporate society needs people to for sustenance ",
"There are a lot of emotional and cynical responses to your question, but only a few of them touch on a small number of the reasons that suicide is considered a crime.\n\nThere is an emotional basis to making it criminal to kill yourself. Most suicides (like most homicides) are attempted as a result of hasty decision made while under severe mental and possibly physical stress. It isn't common for suicide attempts to be cold, logical and rational decisions(though some are), and is often viewed as a permanent solution to what is most likely a temporary problem. \n\nBut there are a lot of non-emotional reasons for why suicide is considered a crime. The first and coldest reason is that someone committing suicide is about to waste a lot of people's time and a lot of money. Someone's gotta investigate the incident to make sure it wasn't homicide. Someone's gotta clean up the mess you left behind. Someone's gonna have to provide grief counseling for the people you left behind. A successful suicide victim means a lot of work and man-hours spent by the rest of society with absolutely zero gain to show for it (some might argue that if the person committing suicide was a drain on society's resources there is a gain, but forget that this person still had the remainder of their life ahead of them to start being a positive contributor to society). This puts the act of suicide into the category of selfish behavior. \n\nIt goes even further, though. Each person in civilized societies that have decided to make suicide a crime represents a significant investment made by that society. A lot of money, time, and resources went into bringing you up. If you're like most people, you went to a public school which is paid for by society under the expectation that the basic education you recieved will enable you to be a productive member of society willing and able to contribute. Your parents, likely also contributed a small fortune and significant time to raise you into adulthood, and western society has a reasonable expectation that this investment is worthwhile because you will carry on the family legacy and hopefully provide care for your parents when they are no longer able to care for themselves. Suicide throws all of that time and investment away, and often its for no good reason. So a successful suicide attempt not only costs society a decent chunk of time and money to deal with after the fact, it also represents a significant loss in all the time and resources invested in keeping you alive and molding you into a productive member of society from the day you were born.\n\nAnd finally, there is debt to be considered. A significant number of suicide attempts are made as an attempt to escape crippling debt. A successful attempt can often result in the party that loaned you money having to swallow the loan as a loss. By making suicide illegal, police forces now have reason to protect the economic interests of lenders by preventing a suicide attempt taking place. It sounds callous, but its really not fair to the banks and other lending institutions to have to swallow a huge loss because the person they loaned money to offed himself to get out of it. If it weren't illegal, you'd have situations where people would take out massive loans or open up lines of credit to spend frivolously in order to really enjoy their last days on earth before killing themselves and not having to deal with the consequences.\n\nSuicide is illegal to protect the interests and investments society has made into every single individual in that society. A lot of people don't realize how much time and money has been spent on them just to get them to adolescence. Its a massive loss and huge waste that suicidal people aren't in the right mindset to be thinking about. Making it illegal serves to act as a deterrent while also protecting the interests of the society as a whole.",
"You can get as complicated as you want with an issue like this.\n\nBut it basically comes down to most of society has been touched by Christianity, and it is a sin to kill. Which includes killing yourself. Many laws in western countries still adhere, at least loosely, to this. "
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3z8nwb | why do songs on the radio sound higher pitched than songs played digitally or on cds? | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/3z8nwb/eli5_why_do_songs_on_the_radio_sound_higher/ | {
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"The pitch is the same. It can be altered but is not. Your radio is not producing the bass portion as well as the other two. So you pay attention to the treble part more.",
"Sometimes radio stations will speed up songs to be able to fit more of them (and ads) into an hour. The downside is this also slightly raises the pitch. \n\nSource: worked at several radio stations. "
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1trk6p | how does software know that you have already used their 30 day free trial after you uninstall and then re-install the software? | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/1trk6p/how_does_software_know_that_you_have_already_used/ | {
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"The application could have written the original installation date into the *windows registry* and this information would usually remain untouched after the de-installation.",
"A few possibilities:\n\n* The installer installs some information that the uninstaller doesn't remove.\n* The installer contacts the manufacturer with some unique information about your computer during the installation to check if it's already been installed."
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4j4i42 | what makes japanese bullet trains much faster and efficient than regular trains? | The question is mostly directed toward the magnetic motor | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/4j4i42/eli5_what_makes_japanese_bullet_trains_much/ | {
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"EDIT: /u/L8BCIFPOouJHjFMTFQdY gives a better answer. maglev bullet trains are being introduced, but they are very much a minority.\n\nThey (maglevs) float above the track. With magnets and superconductors and shit. That means no kinetic friction from the track, which means less energy has to be used to get equivalent acceleration.",
"Lots of engineering went into the Shinkansen to make them more aerodynamic than other more typical trains. Wikipedia is nice to provide a [nice list](_URL_0_).\n\nBut to sum up some of the major technological aspects:\n\n1) It's its own private rail network, so the congestion of other lines have no effect. This is actually the biggest thing--they were able to completely design all of the lines specifically for high-speed passenger transport, tunneling through mountains and barely turning at all.\n\n2) It uses continuous welded rails, so there's less bumping up and down when going from one rail to the next.\n\n3) More power in the power lines.\n\nThere's some other stuff I don't see in the article, like the impressive aerodynamics such as minimizing the amount of shock to the vehicle as it enters/leaves tunnels.\n\nWhile it was revolutionary at the time back in the 50s/60s, most countries in the world now employ some form of high speed rail similar to the shinkansen."
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4f329c | national socialism/fascism | How does this system work?
Is racism and genocide a required concept in this ideology?
why did Germany, one of the first countries to adopt this ideology seemed so successful economically and technologically before they ruined themselves in ww2?
Can it be implemented today without all its negative qualities? (racism, genocide, indulging in war etc.)
| explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/4f329c/eli5national_socialismfascism/ | {
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"It's not a specific system, but has several parts, but it is very common for these parts to get referred to by a variety of names.\n\nFascism has come to largely be associated with an ideology of reduced tolerance for cultural diversity. The political benefit for fascists is that it is very common that people distrust those in other cultural groups and when a society is under stress people will often desire less tolerance of these others. Politicians can use this anxiety to gain support.\n\nNational Socialism is associated with a form of \"cronie capitalism\". It is a system where government officials decide how the private marketplace is broken and very heavily intervenes to try to make it right. This might often include nationalizing certain industries, consolidating firms, and using public money to start, expand, or improve capital investments (e.g. build or retool factories). This usually involves installing government loyalists into the leadership of these semi-private firms.\n\nWhile there is plenty of literature to question the long-term efficacy of the Nazi party's economic policies, part of the reason it seemed to work so well is that the German economy was incredibly broken, despite having a skilled workforce and a history of strong institutions.\n\nThe Nazi party comes in with a message that Germans are great and we need to restore Germany for the German people who have suffered for too long at the hands of outside influences. They come to power and do everything they can to get industry up and running again, re-writing laws, ignoring debts, and getting people active. Importantly, the Nazi's weren't acting *just* to line their own pockets (even though there was plenty of that going on) but many (most?) truly wanted to make Germany great again, even if 'great' was defined by many top officials as conquering most of Europe as soon as possible.\n\nMaking this work is probably very tricky at best. Command economies are those where the government makes most of the decisions and those economies tend to do a bad job of cutting failing businesses or adapting existing businesses to changing demands. The result is usually that the bureaucrats become more interested in maintaining the status-quo than shaking things up. This likely would have happened in Germany if given the chance (and many say it had already begun).",
"This is slightly tricky because, like all political terms, the specifics of where fascism begins and ends aren't clear and each individual fascist thinker had varying perspectives on it. \n\nThe six key tenets of fascism are \n\n- **Nationalism.** The belief that your nation and its people are special, and have a distinct character with innate qualities, tied to the belief that each person should identify with the nation and seek to serve it. This is typically ethnic nationalism (tied to race/ethnicity).\n- **Autarky.** Autarky is strict self-reliance; the nation should not enter into long-term alliances with other nations and should minimise international trade, the goal being self-reliance.\n- **Militarism.** Placing the military at the core of society, in major political roles; emphasising military service and achievement in culture; believing that your nation has the right to use its military to pursue its interests aggressively, through war or invasion. \n- **Conservativism and reaction.** Conservativism is the belief that ideas, systems, and values currently or previously existing should be preserved and adhered to, and that tradition in itself is valuable. It is opposed to progressivism, the belief that traditional ideas, systems, and values should be analysed and discarded as better alternatives are proposed. Reaction is the belief that recent changes to society have been negative, and wanting to return to a better past. Fascism emphasises conservatism heavily as a matter of doctrine, and every actually existing fascism (Italian, German, etc) has also been reactionary -- the Italian fascists yearned to return to the glory days of Rome and the Nazis glorified the Teutonic Knights and Germanic heroes of old, building up a glorious and epic national mythology that should be returned to.\n- **Corporatism.** Corporatism, despite the name and many people's assumptions, does not mean *corporationism*. Corporatism is the socio-economic system where society is divided into sections (eg Military, Agriculture, Manufacturing) with leaders who have representatives to organise them and negotiate with other leaders. This is opposed to the liberal capitalist system (where every person and organisation is in a free market with no official authorities or representation) and the socialist system (where workers own means of production and operate democratically). Corporatism is a tricky thing to nail down and appears in nonfascist ideologies also.\n- **Anticommunism/antisocialism.** The founder of the movement, Benito Mussolini, was an ex-socialist who created his theory of fascism after, he said, discovering its weakness and \"waking from its terrible spell.\" Fascism is opposed to socialism on almost all fronts: socialism is internationalist (the nation is regarded as a temporary and irrelevant structure, movements seek to transcend borders claiming 'the poor of Germany and France have more in common than the rich and the poor in France'), progressive (tradition is not valued, socialists seek to overturn old systems and develop new ones, and then new ones to replace those), anti-autarky, anti-corporatist. Hitler's rhetoric focused on reaction against Jewish-socialist (\"Judeobolshevik\") plots which had weakened European society and future fascists followed.\n\nNow for the other questions...\n\n > Is racism and genocide a required concept in this ideology?\n\nGenocide no. Racism, yes. The special qualities of the race, the purity of the race and dominance of its homeland, loyalty to your race, and the rights of races to act aggressively towards other races are ideas that appear in the writings of all the major fascists I'm aware of. Hitler's obvious, Mussolini didn't start off this way but became aggressively racist in the 1920s when Italy [colonised Africa](_URL_0_) \"as was its right as the superior race\" (this campaign featured concentration camps, forced starvation, and mass execution of civilians).\n\n > why did Germany, one of the first countries to adopt this ideology seemed so successful economically and technologically before they ruined themselves in ww2?\n\nFirst it's important to note that Germany was very successful economically and technologically for generations before the word fascism was coined. Germany suffered harsh setbacks after WW2 and in the early 20s, but had already been recovering quite well by the time Hitler appeared on the scene. Hjalmar Schacht is widely credited with the revitalisation of Germany's economy after WWI and his major achievements all predated Nazism. The second thing to note is that Germany *did* experience an economic growth under Hitler, but that this was a heavily publicly-funded effort that involved massive rearmament, which isn't any kind of long-term solution or surprise. The United States experienced a similar industrial and economic growth during WW2 due to massive public spending on the war and they did it without fascism.\n\n > Can it be implemented today without all its negative qualities? (racism, genocide, indulging in war etc.)\n\nRacism and militarism are at the heart of fascism, imagining a fully peaceful and non-racist fascist society is pretty difficult."
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7984e8 | why can't we see very small things? | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/7984e8/eli5_why_cant_we_see_very_small_things/ | {
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"It doesn't even get down to physical properties such as wavelengths. The simple fact is that your eyes have *limited resolution*. Any light that passes into your eye has to be captured by the light-sensitive parts of cells at the retina (the so-called \"rods\" and \"cones\"), and there are only so many cells in your eye.\n\nThe visual size of an object varies with distance. So the closer an object is to your eye, the larger it appears to be, because the light coming from it hits more retinal cells. Past a certain distance, the light from the object is only spread across a single cell. Further away, the object fades from sight as its light blends into the light from its surroundings."
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6svs3a | how do investors who invest into apps like snapchat make their money back? | Hello. So I want to venture into business so I am currently doing a lot of research. I want to know why so many people invest into snapchat and pour millions of dollars into it. What makes snapchat inc worth the billions of dollars it is proclaimed to be? How do these investors make their money back after investing large sums of cash into it? | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/6svs3a/eli5how_do_investors_who_invest_into_apps_like/ | {
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"This is a bit long to explain, but I'll try to keep it as simple as possible.\n\nImagine Snapchat as a bigass pie. An investor will buy up a percentage of that pie. As Snapchat grows, each piece of its pie will grow and become more valuable. However, the investor still owns the same percentage of the pie.\n\nSo, because each piece is worth more, that means he's made a profit, right? Not yet - on paper, he has. To actually make (or \"realize\") a profit, he has to sell his percentage/piece (called a \"stake\"). In the business world, investors have three options for selling their piece of pie and receiving cash:\n\n1-Sell to another investor. The investor may contact an investment bank to find another pie eater, or may have a friend looking to buy a piece. Once he sells his piece and receives cash in exchange, he has made or \"realized\" his profit.\n\nNow, if an investor thinks the Snapchat pie could grow even more, he may want to hold on to part of his piece. He doesn't have to sell the whole thing.\n\n2-He can \"cash out\" or sell his piece back to Snapchat. To understand this, you have to understand what Equity in a company is.\n\nAll of the things a company owns (cash/equipment/inventory/supplies/property/intangibles) are called \"assets\". To get these assets, a company needs to borrow money (\"liabilities\") or sell a stake in the company (\"equity\"). Using cash, a company has to pay back what it borrows before paying owners. This means that equity can be thought of as the assets owners have a claim to once all debts are paid.\n\nSo, when cashing out, an investor will sell his piece/stake of the pie (\"equity\" in Snapchat) back to Snap corporate, and receive cash (an \"asset\" of Snapchat) in return. Snapchat may favor this if they think the company will continue to grow, and can take on debt or sell pieces to more people (see option 3) - the more of the pie that Snap itself sells, the more cash the company receives. So, it may want to own more of its own pie.\n\n3-Initial Public Offering (IPO) - if there is enough interest, Snapchat and its investors will split their pieces into even smaller slices (called \"shares\") and offer them to individual investors on the open market. Now, if Snap sells some of its shares, it will receive the cash. But, if an investor sells shares from his piece, he gets to keep the cash.\n\nLet me know if this is clear enough, or if you have any other questions. Hope this helps! \n\nEdit: formatting, on mobile and can't preview"
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6q19if | how much of humanity's creation accounts for earth's mass? | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/6q19if/eli5_how_much_of_humanitys_creation_accounts_for/ | {
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"Pretty much none of it. One way of looking at it is to consider a globe with accurate raised mountains. But in fact, if such a globe were the size of a china teacup, it would be smoother than the cup. So our structures are as nothing. OTOH, our pollution can affect the thin layer of life on the surface, and that's important to all of us. ",
"All human made objects are estimated to weigh 30 trillion tons, which is a lot, but minuscule compared to the weight of the earth: 5,972,000,000,000,000,000,000 tons. It's about one billionth.",
"None. Everything we've built came from the Earth to begin with. You can't create or destroy mass so everything we've made weighs the same (in total) as the raw materials they were made from. \n\nIf anything, the Earth is lighter since humans came along. We've built spacecraft and other things and thrown them off the surface of the Earth in to space. "
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3yuf3u | why do police body cams have such bad quality when camera's like gopro's are so cheap? | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/3yuf3u/eli5_why_do_police_body_cams_have_such_bad/ | {
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"it's about how long you plan on recording. \n\nhow many gigabytes would you need to record on your gopro for 8-12 hours? i bet that's a lot more than the size of the card you have. ",
"GoPro's aren't the cheapest cameras you can buy, for an up-to-date model thats ~$400 and going back to the original Hero that's still ~$150. Doesnt seem like much, but your multiplying that cost by every officer you could potentially have deployed at any time. So a small town, maybe 20 cops decked out with original Hero's, thats $3000 in just the camera hardware. More cost is involved in other equipment (cases, harness, storage, replacements) training the officers, maintanence, processing and storing the footage.\n\nThen comes the other point of file size. In a day, one officer could get something like 8hrs of footage. Unless you have really large storage mediums (ie, expensive) you cant record in high quality locally. Then once all 20 officers come back and hand in their cameras, you now have too store 160hrs of footage which is not insignificant. Chances are when the footage is ingested it is transcoded to lower its file size sacrificing quality again, because storage costs money.",
"They are crap in low light situations and need external batteries for longer than a few hours.\n\nCameras record better in low light when they have a larger sensor and night vision capabilities. GoPros have very small sensors and while they record beautifully in the day, not all altercations take place at 2 pm outside on a sunny day. The larger the sensor, the more expensive the camera gets. Add night vision and it gets more expensive. Now add the external battery packs needed to power the extra features and your cost continues to increase. ",
"Everyone has been discussing technical limitations however the likely answer is actually much worse. There are plenty of cameras with much better video quality available. When a municipality or county needs to buy something over a set dollar amount usually a couple thousand they have to go to competitive bid. Here they lost out exactly what they want and the specs they are looking for. In this case a police body camera capable of recording and storing video for say 12 hours. This gets published and then every seller of whatever you sent out for bid gets to send you a proposal of what they can offer and for how much. \n\nThe trick is when you get all these proposals back there's usually a pretty big price difference between the cheapest and most expensive. Obviously the organization ordering in this case the police want the nicest which usually is the most expensive. The town council or county commissioners however usually pressure you towards the cheapest. More times than not you end up with something towards the cheap end that while it works isn't the best option on the market. ",
"Go-pro's are cheap...?"
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5t1lf7 | why do poorer people tend to have more children? | [deleted] | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/5t1lf7/eli5_why_do_poorer_people_tend_to_have_more/ | {
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"There's a number of factors.\n\n1) Below a certain threshold, even small amounts of money matter. If I have plenty of money, having a stash of condoms (or if female, taking birth control just in case) is relatively easy to do. If putting that money towards birth control means I may have to skip a meal, then I may be more likely to risk pregnancy.\n\n2) There tends to be educational gaps, and I've actually known people who honestly didn't understand what causes pregnancy, so them not taking steps to prevent pregnancy makes more sense.\n\n3) Anecdotal, but possibly related. I've been broke before, and it tends to go hand-in-hand with a \"meh, fuck it\" attitude, at least for me and a lot of the people I know. At some point you just expect life to hand you shit, and there's only so much shit-ade you can make, so you stop taking basic measures to prevent bad things\n\n4) Abortions cost money, which ties back into #1.\n\n5) As someone else pointed out \"when you're poor, there's not much else to do.\"\n\nThere's probably a lot more contributing factors, but I suspect the above will account for the majority of the cases.",
"Wealthy people save for their retirement.\n\nPoor people plan to have at least one of their kids take care of them, financially and also as an alternative to a retirement home.",
"This may be controversial but some people are just not great at making decisions for one reason or another. If you are not someone that made great choices like studying hard and working hard you are probably poor. You probably are not super responsible with your birth control or general life planning. Another factor is that if you are super focused on your career then you will tend to be richer. You will also probably have to wait to have kids until you are older which means you will have less of them. Again, these are all broad generalizations but more often than not the traits that make you rich correlate to the traits that make you more responsible when planning your family.",
"I believe it's more that people focused on gaining financial ground and stability put off having children right away. They spend their 20's in college and building a career instead of focusing on having children. \n\nFor instance, those who want to become a doctor, lawyer, vet, college professor, or advanced business profesional etc. require advanced degrees which will take one into his or her mid-to-late 20's and sometimes a little longer. And then one needs several years to establish a career in a chosen field. \n\nA female's reproductive years are only so long. Most people don't want to still be parenting youngsters in their 50's and beyond, so they choose to procreate in the 30's and stop before their early 40's. In a decade or less, with reasonable age separation, you have have 2 to 3 kids... maybe 4 if you are pushing it. \n\nBasically, more successful people want to go to school, establish a career, get their finances in order, get married and then work on a family. But people who are less well off have a different mind set and don't have a career or nest egg; they have a job that they more than likely fell into and live paycheck to paycheck. If they get married, it's often small and inexpensive. More often than not, they have kids, then (maybe get married) and then worry about their finances (making ends meet) after they have already established several kids. \n\nWhen you add in an entire extra decade of child baring into the equation, that means that you can pop out a heck of a lot more kids... anywhere from 4 to 12. \n",
"A lot of it comes down to women's rights. Poorer communities tend to place women in more traditional roles, where much of their value is determined by having children. When women have more control over their lives, they tend to choose when and whether they have children.\n\nSuch societies often give women perverse incentives to have more children. Discouraged from pursuing careers, they need a man to take care of them and having a child with that man means they are more likely to stick around.\n\nFinally, some it comes down to money and education. Birth control isn't always cheap, can require medical assistance, and discipline and knowledge to use effectively. If you don't have health insurance, never got more than a high school education, and live in a society where \"good girls\" don't talk about sex to their doctors or pharmacists, you might not be good at birth control.",
"Tax exemptions. Less wealthy families see it as a way to evade taxes and also be entitled to a \"refund\" when tax time comes around. Also, some see it as a way to be guaranteed income as the children in poverty or near poverty will most likely be subject to belonging to a divorced parent or one that never marries and as such will benefit from child support.",
"Really simple answer - more children costs in the short run but in poorer countries without labor laws they provide income over a longer time horizon. Especially in agricultural societies where more children = more farmhands. People on here seem to think it has a lot to do with birth control availability.. That may be true in the first world. But even before the advent of birth control, poorer people had more children. Correlation doesn't always equal causality. ",
"there's no one reason...I can think of several off the top of my head\n\n* children actually help support you in the long run, yes they cost money to raise but they support you when you are old and/or sick (hopefully) especially relevant if you are farmers or manual laborers. Kids are the poor man's retirement fund\n* less access to birth control/abortions\n* poorer women tend to be less educated and have less economic power, so they may not be aware of birth control options or may not feel able to stand up to their husbands/boyfriends. The more education a woman has, the fewer children she is likely to have.\n* women may have children in the hopes of maintaining a relationship with a straying partner\n* many poor women have few relationships and children can seem like a way out of loneliness",
"1) Poor people are unlikely to be able to afford more effective forms of birth control, especially if they are un- or underinsured. I'm fortunate to have a good-paying job with health insurance that covers HBC and my IUD, which cost $1200. Someone who works a job that pays poorly is unlikely to have these benefits, and is *definitely* not likely to be able to pay out of pocket.\n\n2) Many poorer communities do not have proper sex education - hell, many schools regardless of socioeconomic status don't. It's difficult to prevent pregnancy if you don't understand how the body works to begin with. That, and many poor communities tend towards more religious/conservative values, which don't often encourage birth control and sex education. It's unlikely that a person who grew up knowing nothing is going to be able offer this crucial knowledge to their offspring. I can only imagine what it'd be like to hear the same bullshit I heard in high school, but with parents who they themselves do not know enough about the subject to correct me.\n\n3) Abortions are not only hella expensive, but very difficult to get in most states - and, you guessed it, even more so in poor communities. I can put in for time off work for a doctor's appointment and use sick time without worrying about being fired. I can call off work if I'm sick without fearing that I'll lose my job. Many poor people, however, may work jobs that do not provide sick time, and there's a very real fear that it would ultimately boil down to wondering if they could truly afford to lose their job over this. An abortion isn't just an in and out visit, in many places.\n\n4) Conservative/religious values that dictate gender roles; for some people, women are inherently meant to be mothers, and bearing children is the greatest, single most important thing a woman can do. ",
"The points mentioned in this thread pretty much encompass all the reasons for poor people having more children. \n\nHowever, I would further like to add two more points from a South Asian perspective-\n\n1. Poor folk tend to have more children as it guarantees that there will be more hands available for work, hence contributing towards the financial stability of the family. \n\n2. Since poor people don't get access to proper education, orthodox beliefs are rampant. This causes them to yearn for a male child (males provide for the family, whereas a females marry into another family), hence keeping on having kids until they have one. ",
"In college we had this sociology class where the professor talked about this. One of the answers that made sense was \"Poor people tend to have more children because they think that having more children will mean more people will be supporting them or their whole family in times of need. Whether it be during their old age or during times of illness and etc\"\n\nThis is an opinion and I believe it is relevant to this topic so I brought it up.",
"I just want to chime in with a personal observation here. In my own experience, it seemed like a lot of poorer women - even as young as high school age - would seek romantic and sexual relationships as a means of escape from troubled home and family lives. In contrast, better-off young women would only seek relationships when they felt they added to an otherwise emotionally positive life. I definitely wouldn't go as far as to accuse poor women as a category of seeing pregnancy as a means of securing a relationship; it just seemed - again, in my observation - that they were more likely to have sex earlier and feel they really needed to constantly be in relationships.\n\ntl;dr seems like poor women have more sex due to lack of positive family relationships \n- > more babies",
"Same reason people masturbate when bored. There's nothing to do. People with money tend to stay occupied and have things to look forward to.",
"All of these reasons listed here are surely contributing factors but I haven't seen anyone get to what I'd consider the root of the answer. \n\nI'd say it's all about \"Instant Gratification\" vs. \"Delayed Gratification\" (aka the Marshmallow Test). \n\nThe same type of people who would habitually spend every dime they earn before the week is out so they can never dig their way out of the hole are going to be the same type of people who are thinking short term during sex and go unprotected. ",
"As mentioned by many others, there are multiple reasons, such as a low standard of education due to the incapability to go to school, little knowledge of contraceptives due to, well, the incapability to go to school too, too poor to use contraceptives and abortion etc...\n\nHowever, the first reason I thought of was actually J.C. Cadwell's Theory of Intergenerational Wealth Flow. Indeed, children cost money to raise. The more children one has, the more money one needs, thus poor people have more children; seems paradoxical as you observed. However, you are not taking into account where that 'money' comes from. Is it from the parents' pockets or the children themselves? In other words, if the children are able to contribute to the family, then having many children isn't a very big problem at all. Sure, toddlers wouldn't be able to contribute much, but when they reach an age capable of doing manual labour, they can start paying off their 'debt' by helping the family.\n\nBut there is another part to this theory. What kind of society are we talking about? Less-developed countries, or developed countries? In less-developed countries, children are valuable assets who can help their parents with housework, such as tending to the livestock. Wealth flows from the children to the parents (hence 'Theory of Intergenerational Wealth Flow). However, in developed countries where the cost of living is high, a child may not be able to pay of one's 'debt' no matter how long he works for. Wealth ultimately flows from the parents to the children. Your question title doesn't state which society you are talking about, but since you mentioned America (which I assume is largely a developed society, maybe less-developed for some rural areas; I don't live in America) in your description, the reasons why poorer people have more children are probably the other reasons mentioned (e.g. lack of education).\n\nMost of us live in developed societies, so we tend to assume that 'having children = expensive', which is mostly correct ONLY in developed societies. In less-developed societies, which tend to be poor, having children can be an asset.\n\n*(I'm not sure if this answer is ELI5 standard :c)*\n\n**tl;dr Children in poor families tend to be from less-developed societies where there is a low cost of living, thus instead of being a burden on the family, they can be an asset to the family by contributing back to the family and offsetting their burden when they are of a capable age.**",
"Childre gives them purpose and meaning in they life. It's all about priorities. They get happiness having children but the rich are interested in the biggest house the fastest car the fame the position in society. Even though they don't have the among of money needed to rise them , however we do things that makes us feel good in the moment. \n",
"Because they do not let the amount in their bank account dictate whether or not to have children.",
"My experience is purely anecdotal, so take it at face value:\n\nI worked for HUD during the late 80s-90s in one of the poorest areas of the nation. 13-year old pregnant girls were brought in by the mothers to apply for housing. Consider their circumstances, though: as young, black, under-educated females without transportation or any job opportunities, who already lived in public housing with mothers who survived on welfare and cash gifts from \"friends\", a pregnancy/child meant a relative fortune in benefits: housing rights, Aid to Dependent Children payments, medical care, food stamps (of a sort), etc. Imagine going from being a poor black teen girl in a depressed rural area, with absolutely NO HOPE of anything better, and then the question is not WHY have children, but WHY NOT? As a normal human being with normal desires for intimacy, love, and family, this situation, no matter how abhorrent to someone in different circumstances, becomes the norm.\n\nEdit: should add that the area this took place in also had the highest per capita number of churches, and ZERO sex ed, and limited contraceptive availability, even if the girls had been educated about how to prevent pregnancy.",
"Having kids makes you poorer, so when we assess poor people with lots of kids maybe the tail is wagging the dog. Plus economic incentive, tax credit. Plus birth control cost being higher percentage of income means people don't buy it. Last part is why I'm in favor of full federal birth control subsidies. Will pay off in reduced crime in 13-20 years. ",
"I'd throw in that something being left out in most comments is parents perspective.\n\nIt's not always about benefits and housing. \n\nI look at mentality. People are wired different. People have different ambitions.\n\nMy family growing up, my parents always owned their own business, so about the time I turned 10 I saw my mom to get on the bus and occasionally would see them around 8pm-10pm at night. Their drive was less family oriented but for finances.\n\nMyself growing up mostly parentless from their job pretty much vowed I'd never own my own business and that my kids would get the majority of my time.\n\nI'm not well off by any means and I'm about to go into a different field (IT to nursing). But my gf and I have 3 kids between us and plan on having one more at some point. Because we want to have a big family. \n\nThe kids are not neglected, we are not on benefits, it's merely want we want. We enjoy being parents.\n\nI can't attest to the situation in urban areas as I live fairly rurally. So take that with a grain of salt.\n\nI do know people that have 8+ kids for benefits and I know some that have atleast 5+ that enjoy having a big family. So I think it really depends on the people.\n\nI do know that for the few benefit reaping ones drugs played a large part.",
"Many good reasons already stated in the comments.\n\nHere in The Philippines, it's a mixture of causes.\n\n1. Birth control being unavailable or seen as a luxury. \n2. Poor sex education. I've met 15 year olds with funny ideas about pregnancy or how to prevent it. (Like..if the girl eats certain foods afterwards or doesn't lie down for 3 hours then she can't get a baby).\n3. High infant mortality rate. Even basic medicines are out of financial reach for many. They refuse to go to hospitals, even for serious issues.\n4. Interference from the fucking Catholic church. Apparently God wants people earning $4 a day to have 10 kids.\n5. The hope that one of the kids will get a good job and be able to financially support the entire family. Families here will often pick the eldest girl or smartest kid and put them through school whilst ignoring the education of others. It's easier for girls to find work here. Filipino's focus on supporting their parents more than their children which helps continue the circle of poverty.\n6. Just not caring. So many guys here get girls pregnant and then disappear."
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6d034l | what someone can do with your ssn | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/6d034l/eli5_what_someone_can_do_with_your_ssn/ | {
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"A person can do several things if they gain access to your personally identifiable information. The \nSocial Security Sumber (or Social Insurance Number in Canada) is connected with several aspects of a citizen’s life. If a hacker has access to it, the consequences can be disastrous for the person whose identity was compromised. These are the possible things that they can do with it:\n\n* **Apply for a loan or credit card**\n\n With a stolen social security number, a hacker can open a bank account in the victim’s name. The social security number is perhaps the most important information that a lender requires when processing a loan application. A thief who has access to that number and the name on the card can apply for a loan or get credit cards. When it is time to repay the loan, they won’t. This will damage your credit score because the missed payments will be linked to your number.\n\n On the bright side, by simply analyzing your credit reports and credit scores, you can easily spot fraud and stop it. However, your credit will not recover immediately.\n\n\n\n* **Get medical treatment**\n\n Someone who has access to your social security number can receive treatment under your name. This will taint your medical records. And if you receive medical care based on an incorrect medical history, you will have to deal with deadly consequences.\n\n\n\n* **Get tax refunds**\n\n Perhaps the best way to avoid this situation is to file your taxes as soon as possible. Your tax return will be rejected if a thief has already filed it in your name. This way, you can figure out if your card has been compromised. You can then explore ways to resolve the fraud and take steps to ensure that you receive the refund.\n\n\n\n* **Steal Your Benefits**\n\n The identity thief can also file for unemployment benefits using your social security number. This will deplete the assistance you might need later.\n\n\n\n* **Commit Crimes**\n\n The hacker who stole your social security number may have committed several other crimes as well. If he gets caught for his involvement in another crime and gives your number to the police, you will become entrapped in his criminal history.\n\n Thieves can use your identity for several years without getting noticed. Many of the crimes that they commit cannot be detected easily. Checking your credit reports regularly is a good way to detect unauthorized accounts. If you find anything suspicious, you should act immediately.\n"
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3tn7h4 | how is our brain able to accurately pinpoint the area of our body that is feeling pain or being touched? | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/3tn7h4/eli5_how_is_our_brain_able_to_accurately_pinpoint/ | {
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"You have sensory receptors all over your body and they are there to detect input and communicate that with the brain. When you are touched, that is input, and the receptors generate a message that travels to the spinal cord and then up to the brain. Your brain is like a map and has a region that deals with decoding sensory input. Basically, it can tell which set of receptors picked up on the input and sent the message, and therefore, where precisely the input came from. The signal goes here, you/your brain decides whether to act on that input, and if so, sends a message back down. \n\nInterestingly, some areas of the body have more sensory receptors and more area of the brain devoted to dealing with them than others based on function. Think about how important touch is. Your hands have a ton of tiny receptors because distinguishing touch is really important, and thus a paper cut on your finger hurts a lot. Your back, however, doesn't really need to be that great at touch, so if you were to poke it with something small, you might not be very accurate at pinpointing exactly where you were poked, and a paper cut probably would not hurt as much. (Google \"sensory homunculus\" for a better representation of sensory dedication in the brain.)\n\n(EDIT: changed \"decide\" to \"decides\" because presumably, you/your brain are the same and therefore a singular entity? I hope?)"
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2mk7fg | why did columbus think he had found india, and not china or japan? | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/2mk7fg/eli5why_did_columbus_think_he_had_found_india_and/ | {
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"He knew where he was at relative to the equator. Both India and the West Indies occupy territory around 21ºN. China and Japan are further north than that.",
"The indies were a general term for the East at the time. This is why we have a country named Indonesia (which was called the Dutch Indies), the East Indian Trading company, etc."
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6i0kd4 | why do some peoples have reddish, yellowish etc. tints to their skins? | I understand that peoples who moved to less sunny areas developed paler skin because they could not get the necessary vitamins from the sun. I am not wondering why some people are paler, but instead why some people are more reddish/ yellowish etc.
Edit: I mean more why are certain ethnicities and races tinted different colors, not related to heath issues. For example how most Asian people have a bronze hue to their skin whilst many Middle eastern peoples have a reddish hue to their skin.
| explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/6i0kd4/eli5_why_do_some_peoples_have_reddish_yellowish/ | {
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"I tend to get yellowish skin from time to time and it's due to Gilbert's syndrome, which is basically elevated level of bilirubin in bloodstream.",
"Yellow skin is caused by [Jaundice](_URL_0_) \n\nRed skin can be caused by a variety of reasons (sunburn, inflammation, blushing) all of which involve red blood cells congregating in your skin."
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1xp87d | - curling | It may be because I am under 60 years old but, what is curling and why is it in the Olympics? I don't understand the purpose of sliding a rock across ice and why its considered a sport. | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/1xp87d/eli5_curling/ | {
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"Archery is a sport and it's basically the same thing, with arrows. Golf is a sport and it's basically the same thing, with a stick. Croquet is a sport and it's basically the same thing, with wickets. Shotput, hammer, discus, and javelin throws are all sports, yet curling requires more precision as you're hitting a target rather than just going for distance. All of these sports are or have been Olympic events. Curling is like playing horseshoes with hockey pucks, it takes a lot of finesse and muscle control, and then there's a surprising amount of strategy in being a sweeper. A better question might be why you think curling shouldn't be an Olympic sport rather than asking why it should."
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52toka | railroad crossings don't seem to have sensors or something to warn conductors of a vehicle/object stuck on the track, why? | We have sensors at traffic lights that allow the lights to know when a car is/isn't present so that it will/won't change.
Shouldn't we have something along those lines for the railroad crossings so we won't have to see anymore videos of cars and trains being destroyed. | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/52toka/eli5_railroad_crossings_dont_seem_to_have_sensors/ | {
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"Small subway style trains might be able to stop within a .25 mile or so depending on their speed. A large freight train with hundreds of cars, some of of which maybe be carrying tankers of flammable or hazardous chemicals can not stop quickly.\n\nIt can easily take a mile or more for them to safely stop. An emergency stop might happen quicker but at great risk of derailment or damaging the tanker cars and causing a spill. Sometimes the safest option is to simply plow through the obstruction on the track.",
"Here is the bottom line. Money. You are proposing, some sort of system, that would cost millions, if not billions of dollars to implement, that would at best, warn trains miles ahead of a potential problem which would create a very high false positive system and at worse, warn trains just before an intersection about a problem they can do nothing about anyway. False positives are very bad. Every time a train stops it costs money. It's not just one train that is delayed, but the entire system is disrupted. The train that stopped is now 30 minuets late but the train that wants to use the same tracks but going the other way is also delayed 30 minuets and ect, ect.\n\nCars getting stuck on train tracks is very very rare. Spending that much money on such an irrelevant problem is not a good investment of cash. For a fraction of the cost you can just print signs and post them at every intersection saying, \"If there is a problem, call this number.\" Nearly everyone has a cell phone now, 99% of all calls will be accurate and does what an expensive automated system can't do. ",
"It takes 1 to 2 minutes to stop a train. That's the reason we don't take turns at crossings the same way we do at street intersections. It is hard to stop a train and the process must start 2 miles (3 kilometers) away. While we could create an early notification system, we in fact already have. We notify motorists that they are crossing train tracks and we notify them of the presence of an oncoming train. \n\nBlocked tracks are not a significant problem for safety. Bigger problems are people trying to race a train, people dodging the crossing guards to cross in front of an approaching train, or people walking on the tracks. Compelling a train to stop whenever anything is on the track ahead of it even at a distance would undermine the fuel and time efficiency that trains offer."
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ouxbj | what is "individual mandate" and what does it mean for the u.s.? | What is it exactly and why do people think it's bad or good. | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/ouxbj/what_is_individual_mandate_and_what_does_it_mean/ | {
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"It requires people to buy some kind of health insurance, or pay a tax penalty if they don't. \n\nPeople think it's good because we want everyone to have medical care - but it is difficult to provide that care without everyone be required to pay into the system to spread both cost and risk. Other countries do the same thing by having national health care systems.\n\nPeople think it's bad because OMGWTFsocialismBBQ."
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3zzox1 | why apple is switching to swift from objective c? | [deleted] | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/3zzox1/eli5why_apple_is_switching_to_swift_from/ | {
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"I do not code, but from what I've seen at the Keynote's, it is more efficient in terms of the amount of code you have to write, some things that used to take 5 lines can now be written in 1 line. \n \n**EDIT**: [Here is a short article listing 10 reasons.](_URL_0_)"
]
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[
"http://www.infoworld.com/article/2920333/mobile-development/swift-vs-objective-c-10-reasons-the-future-favors-swift.html"
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1p0l0v | if everyone uses wikipedia, but everyone says it is unreliable, why doesn't wikipedia stop third party edits and edit themselves? | I understand third party editors edit Wikipedia usually and Wikipedia does not have enough editors to edit every page, but with a sight as popular as wiki don't you think they could throw an advertisement in there or ask for more donations to increase valid editors?
It's just a shame wikipedias reliability is always trashed by people. | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/1p0l0v/eli5_if_everyone_uses_wikipedia_but_everyone_says/ | {
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"The entire idea of Wikipedia is that it's a world wide, public collaboration. You might as well ask why Reddit doesn't stop letting people post links and just hire a team of professionals to post stuff instead.",
"Because the contributors are us. We are wiki. ",
"Because the number of people they would need to hire would make it simply unfeasible. They would have to add a ton of advertising to cover the extra salary costs, and the amount of new articles would drop drastically. As it stands, they have several algorithms that go through and get rid of ridiculous edits fairly quickly and they have some staff that goes through to verify the authenticity of certain submissions.",
"Actually, [its way more accurate](_URL_0_) than you think it is. It compared to other non-public sites like Encyclopaedia Britannica.",
"I consider Wikipedia one of the most reliable sources on the planet, *because* it has thousands of people reviewing it constantly."
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djeglx | what causes heart palpitations to actually be felt? what makes them different from regular heart beats that you can't feel at all? | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/djeglx/eli5_what_causes_heart_palpitations_to_actually/ | {
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"For \"skipped\" heart beats, which is one type of palpitation, typically what happens is part of your heart beats out of sync. This causes your heart to beat inefficiently; it can't properly get all the blood out. So the *next* heart beat is extra hard - its pumping more blood than normal. That heart beat after is what you actually feel (although you might feel a slight delay, the beat after feels like your heart flipping or like a dropping feeling in your chest). Enough premature heart beats in a row and you might also feel a sense of dizziness or even shortness of breath. \n\n\nOther palpitations, where you feel like your heart beat is just more... Pronounced, when its not actually faster than normal or irregular, is often just more of an awareness of your heart beat. Some positions make the feeling more noticeable, like laying down. People who have palpitations are more likely to notice them in the evening and at night - when they're laying down and have little to distract them.",
"I've experienced atrial fibrillation after heart surgery, basically when the top chambers of the heart decides to beat faster than the ones below it. Not only do the other chambers in the heart beat harder to compensate, but you can also feel it in the lungs. Kinda like running a marathon while doing nothing. You dont think about it, but how you breathe is linked to your heart rate."
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82knzx | why are other stocks effected so much when one stock crashes? | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/82knzx/eli5_why_are_other_stocks_effected_so_much_when/ | {
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"When my supplier of wine goes out of business, I get cranky and people buy stuff from me less.\n\nCompanies have the same sort of relationship between themselves.",
"There are multiple reasons.\n\n1. Problems in one stock may indicate a problem in the entire industry. If all cows suddenly got sick, the milk company’s stocks suffer and also the cow leather company would have lower future income and investors would sell.\n\n2. Investors who lose their money in the crash may overreact and sell their other stocks (once bitten, twice shy). There are also stop-loss algorithms which sell all the investor’s stock when they suffer a significant loss, which might cause this.\n\n3. The crash of a major stock will lead to lower incomes for investors, and also potential firing of employees etc which leads to decreased economic growth. This will result in lower profits for other companies and is reflected by a overall market shift downwards.",
"Only part of a stock's price is based on actual company value. The rest is based on what people think about the future prospects of the company, its industry, and the economy overall. Not all of these feelings are based on logic and data, some of them are based on fear and greed. People invested in the market know this so they're constantly watching for signs that the tide of sentiment is turning. Nobody wants to be the last to see the signs so some people are always going to jump early."
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3j86pv | what is the difference between fuel economy and fuel efficiency? | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/3j86pv/eli5_what_is_the_difference_between_fuel_economy/ | {
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"Although if you are having a conversation with a regular person, they are basically interchangeable, I think the difference is that while fuel economy means your cars mile per gallon, fuel efficiency is the percent of potential energy in the fuel a vehicle can turn into mechanical energy if that makes sense.",
"\"Economy\" refers to the efficiency of the whole system (vehicle). \n\n\"Efficiency\" refers to the effectiveness of converting fuel into power.\n\nThey are related, because the fuel efficiency of the engine will contribute to the overall economy, but the economy will also factor in vehicle weight, wind resistance, road and tire conditions, etc. "
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8afrs4 | how the government can/does seize a website? | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/8afrs4/eli5_how_the_government_candoes_seize_a_website/ | {
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"text": [
"The find whoever is hosting it. Get a subpoena, and issue the subpoena to the hosting agency. The hosting agency then shuts it down and turns it over to the government.",
"The way website names work is basically a phone book. When you type in \"_URL_0_\", your computer goes to a Domain Name Server and asks it for the website's IP address (the equivalent of a phone number). Your computer then calls up that IP address, where the website's computers pick up and transmit the website data.\n\nThere's a non-profit corporation called ICANN that runs the whole name thing, and they designate control of each section (.com, .org, etc.) to a different company. The directory of .com sites is run by an American company called Verisign, for example, while the .uk directory is run by a UK-based non-profit called Nominet UK. \n\nIf the government wants to seize a website, they can get a court order to take control of that website's directory entry and change it to point to government computers instead of the website's computers, assuming they have jurisdiction for the company that runs that directory or they can cooperate with the country that does have jurisdiction. This is why The Pirate Bay was jumping from domain to domain- every time the record and movie industries convinced a country to take over their entry, they just registered a domain with a company in a different country.\n\nThey can also seize the physical computers that run the website, but if they don't also take control of the directory entry, the website operators can just get new computers and change the directory to point to those computers instead."
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1iw7ct | how does the canadian government and economy function compared to america's? | From a citizen's perspective, what differences are there? | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/1iw7ct/eli5_how_does_the_canadian_government_and_economy/ | {
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"We don't elect our Prime Minister directly. We vote for a member of parliament, and the leader of the party with the most members after all the votes are counted gets appointed Prime Minister by the Governor General. The GG is appointed by the Queen (but she always appoints the person that the current Prime Minister \"suggests\".\n\nElections can be called whenever the GG dissolves parliament. This will happen when the PM asks for that, or after five years have phased with no election, or if the government is defeated in a vote on supply (budgets, basically). So the government can fall, and that forces an election.\n\nThere's also a senate, which is entirely appointed. The current governing party wants to make it elected, but that doesn't seem to be going anywhere at the moment.\n\nAs for the economy, it functions much like the US economy. There are stronger regulations on banking and there's a much, much smaller health insurance industry, but it's very similar.",
"Economically, we're more socialist than the US, but not by as much as you'd think. The single largest difference is that health care is publicly funded here whereas it isn't in the US. Taxes are slightly higher. "
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4dydar | why is reddit just coming out with an app and why did it take so long | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/4dydar/eli5_why_is_reddit_just_coming_out_with_an_app/ | {
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"Did I miss something? A new app? Is it better than \"reddit is fun\"?",
"What the heck is AlienBlue then?",
"I think they are inspired by the success of apps like Bacon Reader. Why did it take so long - no one but reddit team knows the answer but usually it's internal politics that slow things down. "
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8zylan | why does sleeping in a particular direction unblock a blocked nose? | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/8zylan/eli5_why_does_sleeping_in_a_particular_direction/ | {
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"Stuffed noses are caused by mucous but also blood congestion in vessels in your nose due to inflammation. You'll notices that sleeping on your belly might cause congestion and thenoving to your back gets rid of it. Gravity rules all! ",
"When your nose is blocked, it's more often than not nothing to do with a blockage in the nasal cavity, but rather a buildup of fluid in the sinuses that 'pinch off' the airflow. When you lie on the opposite side, gravity redistributes these fluids, and the other side becomes blocked instead. ",
"Once upon a time there was a man sitting under an apple tree reading a book. His name was Newt. An apple from the tree branch above his head became too heavy, broke off the branch, and fell on his head. \"Ouch!\" He cried. He thought someone threw the apple at him, but no one was around. \"Wow...why did that apple just fall?\" He picked up his book and just curiously let go. It fell to the ground. Just like the apple! A lightbulb appeared above his head. \"What goes up...must come down!\" He began to pick up random objects and watched in amazement as they fell down. \"This is science! I shall call this amazing force of pulling things down towards the Earth's surface... GRAVITY!\" That night he stayed up late dropping things. He got a stuffy nose so he decided to go to sleep. His right nostril was very clogged. Newt said, \"I should not have stayed up late. Never again.\" His right nostril was building with pressure of snot, mucus, and boogers. \"I really wish something could help my nose.\" Then another light bulb popped on his head. \"By jove, I will use gravity!\" Newt turned in his bed to his left side. Instantly his right nostril started to drain due to gravity and it felt so good. However, now his left nostril was clogged. So he used gravity again and rolled to his right side. Gravity was Newt's friend, and for the rest of the night as Newt tossed and turned in his sleep gravity was always there to help drain his nostrils. Fin.",
"There are a few reasons. First, a lot of congestion is caused by mucus. Your nostrils don't stay separate for long: they merge into one big passage at the back of the nose called the \"nasopharynx\". The nasopharynx opens right over your mouth and throat. Gravity will make fluid run downward, so if you put the stuffy side up, any blocking fluid may run out of the way eventually.\n\nSecond, your body is about 60% water by weight. Because fluids including water and blood naturally follow gravity, any part of your body placed lower than another will have extra. If your nose is low compared to the rest of you, or one part is lower than another, you might get some congestion because there is extra fluid in the blood vessels and tissue around the nose. This is more pronounced in the nose than elsewhere, too, because you have a lot of blood vessels in some parts of your nose. (Your body works hard against gravity to keep fluid from pooling in places by pumping blood, but it isn't always perfectly successful).\n\nFinally, your nose has something called a \"nasal cycle.\" If you google a cross-section of the inside of your nose, you would see curled shelves of bone on the outer wall, called \"conchae\" or \"turbinates.\" These shelves are covered in tissue that can fill with blood when activated by a nerve, just like the penis or clitoris. This cycle moves from one nostril to the other every couple of hours, so if you stay on one side for long enough, eventually the top side will unblock. Not because of gravity, but simply because it was time to switch.\n\nIt's interesting to note that very small changes in the size of a tube, like your nose, can cause big changes in the ability for air (or water, or whatever) to pass through it. This is denser than necessary by ELI5, but Poiseuille's Law tells us that the radius of a tube increases or decreases flow by a power of four- that means small decreases in the space in your nose can have a huge effect on air flow. \n",
"I can't lay on my right side without my nose getting plugged up. As soon as I lay on my back or better lay on my left side I can breath through my nose just fine. It's irritating because laying on my right side feels comfortable since I always have to lay on my left.",
"Not evertime it's a blockage. Oftentimes it also the [nasal cycle](_URL_0_). I have this, it's annoying.",
"In addition to direction of side turn, there is one more variable to this; It is your chin position. If you tuck your chin in VS if you protrude your chin out. The effect is less pronounced than the turn. You can maximize the open-ness by varying this angle.\n\nI also find holding your breath for about 10 seconds speeds up the shift after I turn. And once the shift starts, short fast nostril breaths hasten the full opening. So glad I could share this !",
"thanks for this info, guys... i never knew about the 'nasal cycle' and was fully prepared to chop-off my left nostril as it is almost always stopped-up.",
"Lookup septum and turbinates. I had a deviated septum and turbinate reduction a few years back. But most of the other answers are correct about blood flow, fluid distribution and inflammation. I think someone also talked about our nose cycles. ",
"Gravity\n\nBlockage is mucous typically and it just moves around a bit opening up the passage giving the clear feeling of unclogged",
"It’s because of your turbinates. You have 3 glands in each nostril called turbinates that inflate like little balloons and cause congestion. They are there to humidify and regulate the temperature of the air entering your nose. Without them breathing would be painful and difficult. This is called (empty nose syndrome). They membranes are very vascular. When you sleep in your side, the blood can rush to that side of your head and cause the turbinates on that nostril to swell. \n\nSome people have enlarged turbinates or a smaller nasal cavity to where this becomes and issue and can cause chronic congestion.\n\nI know this because I’ve had surgery twice on my turbinates for this very issue. I was basically permanently congested and sleeping on my side would many times cause what your are describing. For patients where no medication is effective, surgery can be done to shrink them. ",
"I had this problem, turns out I had a deviated septum. Had the surgery, much better! haven’t slept so well since childhood. ",
"For the people struggling with inhaling through their nose, to the point where your life became a meme by bringing tissues everywhere;\n\nPlease go see an ENT Doctor to check if you have a deviated septum. It's a life-changing surgery and im recovering from one right now. Definitely worth it."
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30qt84 | what are a few of the most elementary financial scams, and how exactly do they work (e.g. exit scam, ponzi scheme, etc.)? | I've heard of an exit scam time and time again but I can't find an explanation. I know a bit about the ponzi scheme, but I'm sure there are other devious plots! Let's discuss! | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/30qt84/eli5_what_are_a_few_of_the_most_elementary/ | {
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"An exit scam is basically just selling things to people but not actually delivering once you got the money. More relevant in less-legitimate markets where trust is a factor in the transaction (since you won't be using a credit card/paypal/etc that could reverse the charge and you don't really want to bring attention to your purchase). You build up trust, people give you money, you send them product, then at some point you get as much money as possible from sales up to the point that you would actually have to deliver, and bail.\n\nPonzi scheme you \"invest\" money for people and promise them a return. You can pay investor A with money from investor B to make it look like they are making a profit, when actually all you did was pay the investors with their own money. As long as more and more people invest, you can continue moving money around to make it look like everyone is making money, but at some point too many people are going to take their money out or not enough new investors will add money to the pot so it will collapse and the last people left will lose all their money.\n\n",
"Pump and dump is a common one. You buy a little-known and little-traded stock. Then you go hyping the stock with false information, like on investor forums. You get people to buy the stock, the price goes way up, and then you sell your shares. Then people realize the company is crap, and try to sell their shares, but no one wants them, and the price tanks.",
"* Ponzi - pay current investor not with profits, but with the principle from new investors\n* Pyramid - investors make money not from the investment, but through recruiting new investors\n* Cashier's check - pay for goods or services with too large of a cashiers check, as for the difference back in cash, check turns out to be fake\n* Exit scam - set up business selling things for real, then stop shipping but keep taking orders\n* The Nigerian - hire someone to help you move money out of the country, make them open a shared back amount with some token minimum in it"
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2lkfge | interstellar and the science involved | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/2lkfge/eli5_interstellar_and_the_science_involved/ | {
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"Normally you think of moving as going from point A to point B in a physical sense within our 3-dimensional world.\n\nBut many believe that we \"move\" through time in a similar way, that that's the 4th dimension. The only difference being that we're stuck going in one direction on this line (the future), and strangely, only able to see in the opposite direction (the past). It's kind of like we're driving backwards. There is no way to change the direction we are moving, the best we can hope for is to either #1, change the speed we move through it (which they did, although in this case it was an unwanted side effect) and #2, change the direction we can see along the line of time, which they kind of did with the \"ghost hand\", but the fact remained that it's a lot easier for the future to see us than it is for us to see the future.\n\nA 3rd option, to keep with this whole \"driving backwards\" analogy, would be to view the car from outside, which is where the 5th dimension comes in, allowing Cooper to see his timeline from another direction. Just like how a line on a piece of paper is 1 dimension, you can't really \"see\" the line for what it is when you're trapped \"inside\" of it (much as we are \"trapped\" inside the 4th dimension, time) but if you can look at it from the outside, that's when you can really see it and possibly even manipulate it.\n\nGravity is measured in meters per second squared, but do we really know what a second squared is? Well, if a line is one dimension and a square is two, and time is the 4th dimension, maybe time squared is the 5th dimension, which is why gravity is the only way he was able to manipulate it.\n\nI should have been in bed 6 hours ago and I'm loopy as all getout, so if this made any sense at all, it would be a miracle.\n\n"
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38uslm | why does having noise in the background (tv, music, etc.) make me feel safer when i'm home alone? | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/38uslm/eli5_why_does_having_noise_in_the_background_tv/ | {
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"Your ears are sensitive through a wide ride of volumes. When it is very quiet, you hear faint noises you are unaccustomed to, which can be disconcerting. Background noise hides those sounds with ones more familiar to you, restoring your comfort level.",
"It tricks your brain into thinking you are with friends, which makes you feel like someone is less likely to sneak up on you or otherwise try to hurt you. ",
"I have had kids in my house for a lot of years, and it is rarely quiet, ever... So, when it is, and i am alone, it is disconcerting, unfamiliar. i do not feel scared, it just doesn't feel right. I usually put some music on and do my thing :)",
"I think people have a psychological dislike of silence. Because \"true silence\" is something that is actually hard to achieve. \n\nI recall reading somewhere that there exist some actual, acoustically soundproof rooms, that are so quiet that it's been known to actually make some people extremely uncomfortable if left in there for long periods of time.\n\nI also read an interview with a police interrogator once, who said one of the most powerful \"tricks of the trade\" is to just sit in an interrogation room with a suspect, and not say a word. Eventually, they will start talking, since, in his experience, people hate silence and need to fill the void with their own voice.",
"Keeps your imagination from working overtime trying to decipher every weird piece of background noise it picks up. \n\n\"FUCKING DRACULA!!!! Oh wait, no, that's the water heater turning on.\"\n\n",
"It's not about feel safer, it's the fact that many of us are unaccustomed to silence. We feel awkward, unsafe, and even scared when everything is all quiet. Because when everything is quiet we think more. And nobody wants to think anymore ",
"I agree with all the stuff that has been said about background noise being the normal.\n\nBut I think it goes even deeper than that and this deep-seated fear harkens back to the says in when humans lived in the wilderness and when something was too quiet, a predator may have scared off other animals and is stalking you surreptitiously.\n\nYou know, \"clever girl\" and all that stuff too."
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6mwnz5 | how can certain areas of the world be so dominant in online gaming? | For instance why can Korea consistently have teams win against the rest of the world in Mobas, while Europe generally has the best CSGO players? Also how come different areas play the same game with different strategies? With enough experimenting shouldn't the same optimal strategy be found? I understand in some places professional gaming is more popular, like Korea, but if teams everywhere practice full time, shouldn't they be all similar levels of skill and technique? | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/6mwnz5/eli5_how_can_certain_areas_of_the_world_be_so/ | {
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"It's just popularity. Like if you grow up in Canada dang near everyone grows up playing at least a little hockey. If you're good you practice against other good locals. Go up a few levels and you're playing playing with the best of the best.\n\nIf you grow up in Florida maybe one in a few hundred plays hockey. The best of those practice with each other and eventually you end up with the Panthers.",
"As for why Europeans are good at CSGO, it probably has to due with PC gaming being significantly more popular in Europe than in the United States. Counter-Strike is one of the most dominant competative shooters in PC gaming history, so it's not surprising that a lot of European gamers play it. Korea has a huge gaming community focused in small area, and this creates a powerful and competitive culture around it. RTS and MOBA games in particular are very popular in Korea, so lots of youth participate very competitively. The more people you have playing, the more likely you'll get superstar players and teams from your areas."
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536ob6 | besides the battery, what is keeping us from creating a full artificial permanent heart that can replace the organic one? | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/536ob6/eli5_besides_the_battery_what_is_keeping_us_from/ | {
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"I think we still lack the material or coating material that is not rejected by the body. \nNowdays you would have to take Immunosuppressive medication and similar stuff to make your body hopefully accept the organ. \nThat reminds me of a documentary about the first time spider silk was synthesized in the lab and one application was for wound recovery and coating of artificial organs as it is antibacterial and had good properties to not provoke reactions from the body. \n(no expert opinion)",
"Not for this sub.\n\nConsider if you have **resting** heart rate of 70 beats per minute. That device needs to beat 4200 times an hour, 100800 times a day, 36792000 times a year. For the rest of your life. \n\nWith no stopping for repairs, adjustment or any other typical maintenance. Plus all of this has to be biologically compatible with your body, and roughly the same size and shape as your real heart. \n\nNot an easy task."
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2vunus | why do people hate thomas edison so much? | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/2vunus/eli5_why_do_people_hate_thomas_edison_so_much/ | {
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"Honestly, I don't know many people who \"hate\" Thomas Edison at all.",
"Most people tend to go on about the animal torture. That's a valid complaint, but I'm more opposed to the moral bankrupcy he demonstrated during the great phenol plot.",
"While Edison did create many things, he was also at the head of the Edison Corporation, or whatever it was called. When someone had an idea, he'd push it through until it was perfect, but then take ownership for the company. So many things that have Edison's name were not exactly his.\n\nHe also conned people into thinking alternating current (AC) was more dangerous than direct current (DC), which is what he was pimping. There's science, words, and Edison killing elephants in the [War of Currents](_URL_1_).\n\nHe discredited Tesla as well, turning him into a penniless madman at the time of his death. History has shown that Tesla was a far smarter man who would have probably [destroyed the world](_URL_0_), accidentally. A man after my own heart.",
"Topsy the Elephaant; killed by electrocution on January 4, 1903, at the age of 28 by Inventor Thomas Edison; who oversaw and conducted the electrocution, [and he captured the event on film](_URL_0_)."
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6y2igu | why does our body sometimes moves or shakes when we remember a cringy situation from the past? | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/6y2igu/eli5_why_does_our_body_sometimes_moves_or_shakes/ | {
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"If the situation triggers a flight or flight response, the body's first impulse is movement. \n\nA loud noise behind them will cause most people to start. This is your brain telling your body to fire up its muscles and get ready for whatever is about to happen.\n\nRemembering a sufficiently unpleasant situation could trigger a similar flight or fight response, firing off muscles for the hardcoded classic danger response that nearly all mammals share.",
"I'm hoping someone else can give a more detailed answer.\n\nIn my experience, as someone with clinical depression and general anxiety and having been on SSRI's to treat both, the stress I experience when initially exposed, or remembering the exposure, to something \"cringey\" feels the same as the kind of stress induced twitches I get from stress itself and from being late taking my medication.\n\nYour body processes stress through a number of neurotransmitters, each with their own effects, and some these will affect your muscles (there are studies being done demonstrating that dopamine, as an example, helps dictate how toned your muscles are). Different people show different symptoms for depression and anxiety, and I in particular have a greater tendency to show things like twitching or tense muscles, possibly even before I'm consciously aware that I'm stressed out.\n\nAs a final note, I handle cringe inducing humour very poorly. I find it makes me more uncomfortable than it does a typical person, and I sometimes feel so overwhelmed that I can't finish reading/watching/etc. the material.\n\nI hope some of this helps!",
"Just wanted to tell you guys that I'm happy not to be alone with these cringey memories!\nHappens so often to me and when it does I almost wanna leave my body.\nDoes someone know if people with depessive tendencies suffer more under that issue?"
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ymmh4 | magnetic door locks. how do they work? | So I get the basic concept. Magnets, force, etc. My question us more this:
At work, we have magnetic door locks. It's a fire code violation if they lock from inside. So to get out, you push the door and it opens. To get in, though, you have to scan your badge and it "deactivates" the locks. How does the door know if you're pushing or pulling? | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/ymmh4/magnetic_door_locks_how_do_they_work/ | {
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"The magnet is a simple electromagnet. There is an iron block welded or bolted to the door on one side, and there's a mounted system with more iron bars on the frame of the door. When it's active, (you can't open the door) there is electricity going through the part mounted on the frame, which holds that part and the part on the door together. When you can open it, the electricity is off.\n\nThere's a switch on the inner jambar thingie (whatever they're called) which allows electricity from a unit that controls the magnet through. The controller senses that the bar has been pressed, and it deactivates the magnet. The same thing happens when you swipe your card or whatever method they have to deactivate it on the other side.\n\nIn the case of a fire, there's a place on the controller for the fire safety system to be wired in. When the alarm goes off, it is sending electricity to the controller like if someone was pushing the jambar or swiping their card, and it stays disabled until the fire safety system is turned off.\n\nSource: I've taken them apart and hacked around with them several times. They're neat."
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54yyak | why are forests cut in square shapes in the us? | [deleted] | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/54yyak/eli5why_are_forests_cut_in_square_shapes_in_the_us/ | {
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"These areas were logged at some point, notice the new growth in the areas that aren't as densely covered. I don't know if there is a specific reason for the grid pattern, I imagine it is just easier to manage that way.\n",
"In that particular example, various areas are designated scheduled to be and sold off to logging companies who come harvest the trees on a in certain areas while leaving other areas untouched to reduce impact on the ecosystem and ensure the forest remains renewable.\n\nIn other locations, there could be a other reasons. They could be cut along property lines, cut to make farmland (fields are usually square or rectangular), hit town/county/state boundaries, and so on.",
"Not sure about U.S. forests, but a classic way of managing forests, going back to before industrialization iirc, is to cut them into squares to manage the age of the trees for logging.\n\nLet's say you've got a kind of tree that takes 20 years to mature.\n\nIf you planted your land full of trees you'd have loads of trees in 20 years and then you'd have to wait 20 years before having trees again.\n\nNot a very sustainable business model, or good way to have a steady source of wood for whatever purpose.\n\nInstead you could cut your land into 20 squares. Each year you plant trees in one of the squares. After 20 years, you cut it down and replant. You then have a steady stream of trees to log every year. \n\nIt also simplifies it when you have, say, 4 different types of trees, which each take a different number of years to mature. You just designate a number of squares as relevant for each type, write it up on a map.\n\n",
"Other answers have explained why they're squares -- basically, surveying of land in the western US was done in the past 150-200 years in which surveying technology was advanced enough to do big squares instead of following topographic features quite as much.\n\nBut maybe you're asking about the \"checkerboard\" pattern? That's a peculiarity to how land was developed in Oregon, and we ended up with an alternating grid of land with 1/2 owned by a railroad and half managed by the federal government. It gets complicated but here's a history of how it played out: _URL_0_"
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|
33p2ng | why is that so many people appear to be unaffected by a huge knife sticking directly into their brain, but almost always, a knife to the neck or chest will more than likely result in a fatality? | This question is due the large number of posts recently of people seeming nonchalant about a knife sticking out of their head | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/33p2ng/eli5_why_is_that_so_many_people_appear_to_be/ | {
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"Knife in brain guy? Is that you?",
"I suspect its more that people who survive shocking injuries to the brain are relatively rare and thus noteworthy.",
"Maybe because if the knife doesn't hit any vital part of the brain your main body funcions still work, breathing for example. (I've read about a guy who wasn't careful when placing dinamite in a hole for mining and the blow shot a metal pipe through his head. He lived on with a 2 cm diameter hole in his head.)\n\n\nI guess when you get stabbed in the chest or neck you bleed much more and lose all the 5L quickly...",
"There's not just one simple answer, as the systems involved are very complicated as well as the circumstances surrounding the stabbings are also unique to each case.\n\nPart of it might be some confirmation bias. You see so many people in ER waiting rooms or x-rays of people with knives, screw drivers, etc. sticking out of their heads. That's because it's such a bizarre sight. We think of the brain as this ever-crucial organ, so when someone walks into the ER with something sticking out of their brain, it's noteworthy and pictures of it are shared. You seldom get to see pictures of people who died from being stabbed/impaled through the brain. Many of them are DOA or do not sit in the waiting room for help. They get rushed to a trauma bay and emergency treatment is implemented behind closed doors. \n\nAnd then there's the misconception that a knife to the chest or neck is \"almost always\" fatal. This isn't necessarily the case. As I researched this, I came across one [source](_URL_0_) that finds that the mortality rate for stabs that penetrate the heart are around 15.5% and non cardiac stab wounds have a mortality rate around 2.5%. Now, you don't see many people in the ER with a knife protruding from their chest or neck, because even if they're stable there is a higher risk that the patient may start to lose massive amounts of blood, and they need a closer eye kept on them. If someone is relatively symptom free with an object in the brain, it's maybe not as critical of a situation and they may have to wait for treatment behind more serious cases.\n\nThen there are the circumstances of the stabbing. A knife to the skull will most likely get stuck in the bone, so it's a one and done sort of deal. It is far more likely to get stabbed multiple times in the chest and neck than it is in the head. The more holes you have in your body, the more likely you are to die from your wounds.\n\nFinally there's the anatomy of the organs involved. The brain is a very complex and large organ. Its functions are relatively compartmentalized, but there is also quite a bit of distribution of functionality. The more critical functions are located in the innermost parts, such as the parts that regulate temperature, blood pressure, respiration and heart beat. The chances of them getting damaged by a stabbing are fairly low. And the brain is resilient. Even if one part is damaged (from a stabbing or even a stroke), it can \"rewire\" itself to accommodate for the lost function. Someone with a damaged speech center, can sometimes relearn how to speak by using another part of the brain. So if the brain is stabbed and decent sized blood vessel is not ruptured, there is a good chance it will not be immediately fatal.\n"
]
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|
2pgqbo | why is my smoke detector so sensitive to burned toasts but not to a burning towel left on the stove? | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/2pgqbo/eli5_why_is_my_smoke_detector_so_sensitive_to/ | {
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"Smoke detectors detect smoke particulate, not the presence of fire (usually they also have system that detects excessive heat). Burning toast tends to produce a nice cloud of smoke while a burning towel tends to burn more cleanly (not very much smoke), leading to less particulate for the detector to detect. You could have a roaring alcohol fire underneath a smoke detector and it wouldn't pick it up (assuming it doesn't get the device too hot) because there would be essentially no particulate produced. "
]
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[]
] |
||
6wpz8j | how were the japanese warned of the dprk missile? | I've been reading comments from Japanese people saying that they've gotten alerts on their cell phones from the government warning them of the missile heading towards Japan. And then another when it flew over, and another when it was confirmed that it was completely safe.
So how is it done? Does the government send a text message to everyone in the country? Does everyone have an app installed on their phones which issues the warnings? Is there something else? | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/6wpz8j/eli5_how_were_the_japanese_warned_of_the_dprk/ | {
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"They can send text messages to anyone but modern cellphones have options like AMBER. \n\nIn Japan especially, a lot of people have iPhones, and if you're american, they're an option in Settings > Notifications , scroll all the way down and you'll see \"AMBER alerts\" and \"Emergency alerts\". \nIt works the same way in Japan.",
"Modern telephone systems have these kinds of warning built in. One of the first integration between cell phone systems and warning systems were in Japan as they frequently have to warn people about Earthquakes and Tsunamis. The warnings are sent out as a kind of SMS but broadcast to all cell phones connected to a cell and not addressed to a specific cell phone. The phones might also interpret these messages differently to make them stand out and more noticeable. It is also possible to have such system for older cell phone technology by creating a list of every phone connected to a cell and then send an SMS to each phone individually.\n\nYou have a cell phone capable of receiving these kinds of messages and unless the cell phone tower you are close to are very old it also have the technology in place. But depending on how much the government is invested in this it may not be available. A lot of agencies are also careful not to issue warning unnecessary so you may not have received any. It is possible to test most of the system without actually sending out a mass message."
]
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[],
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|
3yv8tr | what's going on when we have a bad headache/migraine? is the brain telling itself that it feels pain or is the brain itself actually in pain? | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/3yv8tr/eli5_whats_going_on_when_we_have_a_bad/ | {
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"It's never your brain. The brain doesn't have pain receptors and can't actually feel pain. The membrane around your brain can feel pain, but the brain itself cannot. \n\nThe pain you feel is not your brain - it's usually blood vessels being either dilated or constricted in your head. "
]
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[]
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||
893fr7 | why do most nerve tracts crossover so that neurons in the brain's cortex innervate muscles on the opposite side of the body? | Functionally and from an evolutionary perspective, what is the advantage of having nerve tracts decussate to the contralateral side of the body? For example, the optic chiasm, the corticospinal tract, etc. | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/893fr7/eli5_why_do_most_nerve_tracts_crossover_so_that/ | {
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"dwp7k6d"
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"text": [
"Asking this question in this manner rather obfuscates it. Perhaps to a community like the ELI5 it would be better to say: \"Why do the brain's hemispheres control the opposite side of the body?\" \nOr something to that extend.\n\nOne interesting theory I saw in [_URL_0_] is that it contributes to the flight response in limbed-animals. There the author argues that the crossover may benefit response and coordination during flight responses. Not a perfect theory, but the best one I can tell you. "
]
} | [] | [] | [
[
"https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/15664541"
]
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|
6eo12g | what happens if you defend yourself against a bounty hunter? | Saw a news article and it made me think of what would happen if i successfully defended myself against a bounty hunter.
For instance: The perp has an outstanding charge and did not show up to court. A bounty hunter gets assigned and finds the perp. The perp defends himself against the bounty hunter which results in the death of the bounty hunter. Would the perp receive charges for the death of the bounty hunter(murder/manslaughter)? What is the threshold for identifying yourself as a bounty hunter or any LEO?
Thanks | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/6eo12g/eli5_what_happens_if_you_defend_yourself_against/ | {
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"Bounty Hunters aren't supposed to attack with deadly force in the first place. In theory, they're supposed to approach peacefully and ask the guy to comply, and can make it clear they're armed if necessary.\n\nThis way, the perp isn't in the \"defending himself\" position. If he attacks, he's the one who started the fight. ",
"Could the defendant be charged with a crime? Absolutely. Bail bondsman, police officer, or any other civilian, a homicide happened. There's only a few select reasons to exempt a homocide from being charged, legal self defense being one of them. However a fleeing criminal can't use that as a legal defense against his pursuer. At the point in time when bounty hunter is on you, you have been charged and found guilty of failing to appear at the court hearing. Whether you are guilty or not of the original reason why you were summoned to court in the first place is irrelevant at this point. "
]
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3y5942 | how fast would a santa have to be to deliver all the presents to everyone in the world? | Yeah I know Santa isn't real. | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/3y5942/eli5_how_fast_would_a_santa_have_to_be_to_deliver/ | {
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"If we look at it as Santa only visits homes, and thus only has to make one stop per home. Additionally because of time zones we will assume he has a 24 period of time to stop at all the locations.\n\nThe best estimate I can find assumes there are about 900,000,000 houses in the world.\n\nWith these numbers, Santa would have to visit 10,417 homes every second to make the run. ",
"Data is incomplete, so we'll do some fast and loose maths.\n\nThere are [about 1.23 billion children under 10](_URL_2_). Obviously, we shouldn't count all of them since Santa only visits children who actually believe in him, not just metaphorically or as a holiday spectacle. But we *do* count both good and bad children since he has to give bad kids coal too.\n\nLet's start by excluding the two biggest countries that probably don't have many kids that *believe* in Santa. [~236 million indian children](_URL_14_) and [~160 million chinese children](_URL_3_). The next most populous country, Indonesia, only has [~44 million kids](_URL_4_), so the numbers will probably diminish quickly after that. I'm too lazy to add up a bunch of bar graphs so let's just call it another 200 million across the rest of the world.\n\nThat leaves about 600 million children under the age of 10 in countries that *generally* believe in Santa.\n\nBelief drops off dramatically by 9 years old. [Around 60% of 6-7 year olds and around 30% of 8-9 year olds.](_URL_6_). Recall from before that the under-10 population is more or less evenly distributed. That means only about 40% of children under 10 *in countries that generally believe in Santa* actually believe in him. But now we've racked up a whole lot of margins of error, so let's call it an even half to account for children that believe in Santa in the countries we just excluded earlier, and those who still believe past age 9.\n\nThat leaves 300 million children worldwide who believe in Santa.\n\nNow take into consideration /u/Dicktremain's point about homes. The [average household is about 3.5 people](_URL_0_) (it's missing data on a bunch of countries, whatever. and excluding china and india doesn't change much). Let's assume an average of 1.5 parents per household (because I can't find a good source). That means there are an average of 2 kids per household.\n\nWhich means Santa has to visit 150 million houses.\n\nStealing /u/DrImmergeil's estimate of time. The [sun rises at about 8:00 in the morning](_URL_8_). But Santa can't start right when the sun sets, he has to wait till kids go to sleep. So let's assume bedtime is 10:00p. That's 10 hours of night time that he can use. Plus 23 hours for every other timezone.\n\nSanta has to make **150 million stops in 33 hours, or about 1263 stops every second**. But how *fast* is he going?\n\nBecause [half of everybody lives in cities](_URL_1_), the travel distance is significantly shorter for some trips. I couldn't find any data on average world city sizes, but I did find [the average area of a US city is ~614km^2](_URL_17_). We do know that US cities tend to sprawl, and as a sanity check, the [largest Canadian cities and towns (excluding villes) is ~720km^2](_URL_9_). There's clearly a *bigger* bias here, but I don't know exactly how much.\n\nTrying to figure out exactly how far Santa has to travel in each city will be an impossible task, depending on the density of believing children. But we have an upper limit of about 500km^2 per city on average. Within the [~150 million km^2 total land area of Earth](_URL_7_), it might as well be a single point. But remember, fully *half* of Santa's travels are in these tiny little dots, so he travels *a lot* within them. Let's try to compensate for it some other way.\n\nLet's assume that the other half is evenly distributed around the world. Our hypothetical children in Antarctica should very adequately make up for the intra-city travel distances. What about the excluded countries of India and China? Well there's a bunch of countries we didn't exclude all around them, so you're still going to have to fly over anyway. Probably won't make a huge difference.\n\nSanta has to make 75 million stops spread over 150 million km^2 of land. Each stop sits on [almost 2km^2 of land](_URL_15_). Assuming a triangle because it's the easiest to calculate, each stop is [2.14km from each other](_URL_11_). That's a grand total distance of [160 million km](_URL_10_), with half of the stops evenly distributed among the world landmass and half the stops in a single point.\n\nSanta has to visit 150 million houses over 160 million km in 33 hours. Or an average of [**3.9 million km/h**](_URL_5_).\n\nThis is [36.5% of the speed of light](_URL_12_), a measly [warp 0.19](_URL_16_).\n\n/u/The_Dead_See asked about time dilation effects. At those speeds [there's barely any](_URL_13_). And it'll actually work *against* Santa. He'll experience *less* time than the rest of us, but he still has to get the job done in 33 hours of the at-rest frame of reference - that is, our time. For the 33 hours that we experience, Santa will only experience about 30. So he has to deliver all those presents and coals with 3 fewer hours in his frame of reference."
]
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"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_number_of_households",
"https://www.cia.gov/library/publications/the-world-factbook/fields/2212.html#xx",
"https://www.cia.gov/library/publications/the-world-factbook/graphics/population/XX_popgraph%202015.bmp",
"https://www.cia.gov/library/publications/the-world-factbook/graphics/population/CH_popgraph%202015.bmp",
"https://www.cia.gov/library/publications/the-world-factbook/graphics/population/ID_popgraph%202015.bmp",
"https://www.wolframalpha.com/input/?i=130+million+km+%2F+33+hours",
"http://www.theatlantic.com/health/archive/2014/12/when-do-kids-stop-believing-in-santa/383958/",
"https://www.wolframalpha.com/input/?i=world+land+area",
"https://www.wolframalpha.com/input/?i=december+25+sunrise",
"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_the_100_largest_cities_and_towns_in_Canada_by_area",
"https://www.wolframalpha.com/input/?i=2.1427km*75million",
"https://www.wolframalpha.com/input/?i=1.988km%5E2+equilateral+triangle",
"https://www.wolframalpha.com/input/?i=%28130+million+km+%2F+33+hours%29+%2F+c",
"https://www.fourmilab.ch/cship/timedial.html",
"https://www.cia.gov/library/publications/the-world-factbook/graphics/population/IN_popgraph%202015.bmp",
"https://www.wolframalpha.com/input/?i=%28world+land+area+%2F+75+million%29",
"https://www.wolframalpha.com/input/?i=warp+factor&a=*C.warp+factor-_*Formula.dflt-&a=*FS-_**WarpSpeed.w-.*WarpSpeed.v--&f3=0.00365&f=WarpSpeed.v%5Cu005f0.00365&a=*FP.WarpSpeed.Series-_NG",
"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_United_States_cities_by_area"
]
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|
p56q8 | will someone please eli5 "dues ex machina" | I don't understand that saying. Is it a reference? | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/p56q8/will_someone_please_eli5_dues_ex_machina/ | {
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"It's simply something written in by the writer that either explains away other things in the plot or makes it so that characters can conveniently escape their predicament. It typically means something that the writer sort of pulled out of their ass when they couldn't come up with a decent way to explain a situation.\n",
"I think of it as an \"out of context\" solution to a problem. It is as if (and this is how it was originally used) the problem was divinely solved. It can be very much like calling something \"ironic\" in the sense that pretty much anything can be argued as being in context (no matter what you call \"ironic\" someone will disagree).\n\nBut if you imagine a tense chase scene in a city and suddenly the bad guy is shot when a gun some random person is cleaning in their apartment goes off and kills them, saving the good guy. That whole \"WTF happened?\" feel is what I am talking about.",
"The essential element of a story is a character's struggle to achieve something. The ups and downs of the struggle is what entertains us. \"Deus ex machina\" ruins this by basically making the character's struggle irrelevant.\n\nLet's say it's a story about me as a struggling immigrant:\n\nI come to America and face prejudice and poverty. Then there's some happy moments when I get married and start a family. But then there's more struggle as I face problems starting a business, encounter racism, etc.. Then at my lowest point, I win the lottery (deus ex machina) and all my problems are solved and I live happily ever after. The story is ruined because there's no real outcome of my struggles. All my perseverance didn't really matter because it had nothing to do with the happy ending. ",
"* Movie starts\n* Plot has holes\n* *Deus ex Machina*\n* Profit",
"It basically means that whoever is writing a story took the easy way out of a plot conflict.\n\nSome seemingly inescapable conflict arises in the plot, and some external force which has possibly not even been referenced yet in the book \"swoops in\" and saves the day.",
"Deus ex machina: \"god out of the machine\"; plural: dei ex machina) is a plot device whereby a seemingly unsolvable problem is suddenly and abruptly solved with the contrived and unexpected intervention of some new event, character, ability, or object.",
"In ancient Greek plays, tragedies often ended with a God descending from heaven (lowered by a machine, of course) and bringing closure to the plot.\n\nHence the saying Deus ex Machina (*or* *God from the machine*). It is usually used when someone or something out of the blue brings a storyline to an end which would not have been possible otherwise.\n\nExample: In the final matrix movie, Neo makes a pact with one of the machines to kill Agent Smith. Without the help from that machine, this would not have happened and nothing in the film up to that point indicates that such an event was even a possibility.\n\nNote that the thing interfering in the plot line does not have to be divine or a machine to be called a Deus ex Machina, it simply needs to bring about an improbable change in the story."
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26h1lk | how can weather forecasting website show so much detail of the weather, even for small cities? | I know they use satellites. But how is it possible to get wind speed, temperature, humidity, etc. of every city on earth by just taking some satellite pictures? | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/26h1lk/eli5_how_can_weather_forecasting_website_show_so/ | {
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"Well, most of those things you mention are really not gathered by satellite, but instead through LOTS of weather stations scattered around the country/earth. Especially at airports. Those little weather stations measure lots of different things like temperature, humidity, wind speed, air pressure, cloud cover, etc... and by combining all that info together, along with historical trends, and meteorological theory, computers can make pretty good guesses at what the weather will be like in the future in any particular place.\n\nBut even then, computers don't have ALL the data or perfect equations to do their math with, and so even small inaccuracies can produce bad results, especially far into the future."
]
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[]
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|
308cyq | what's stopping us from drilling to the center of the earth (other than economical reasons) | Hi I'm writing a book and was curious how would one get to the center of the earth. What roadblocks are we faced up against? Are there any limitations of modern technology? How would we get there, and what's stopping us from doing so?
Thank you for any responses. | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/308cyq/eli5_whats_stopping_us_from_drilling_to_the/ | {
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"Well once you get through the mantle, the inside of the planet is molten magma. You can't drill through a liquid. Plus I think there's also an issue of lots of pressure (not sure on that one tho)",
"To put it simply, it gets too hot. The deeper you go the hotter it gets. Once you reach about 10 km (6 miles) down temperatures are already as high as 482F (250C). Once you're through the crust (about 30 miles down)and into the upper mantle, which consists of partially molten rock, you’re talking about temperatures in the range of 650-1200C (1200-2200F). . We don’t know exactly, but the Earth’s inner core is theorized to have a temperature of around 6000 Kelvin (5,700C, 10,300F)",
"If we forget the economical reasons, the main issue we face is heat. It gets really hot as you go down - 6000°C hot. At this temperature it is very hard to drill or do anything else. \n \nLet's assume your drill doesn't give a damn about the temperature; you have a massive amount of pressure to deal with. Specifically, the pressure is just under 3,000,000 times the pressure of our atmosphere - this is enough pressure to turn your human body into the size of an apple. \n \nFinally, you'll eventually be drilling through magma, and you probably know that drilling through a liquid is pretty impossible - you know, because it ain't a solid. \n \nYou'd have to find a way to drill quickly through the surface of the earth, with a drink that withstands all pressures and temperatures, and then throw some thick carbon nanotube walls around the magma so that you can continue making a tunnel without magma seeping in. You'd have to drain the magma from your tunnel, dispose of it somehow, and create a robot or force field that can withstand the massive pressure and heat of the core.",
"You're using reddit ELI5 to research a book? ",
"Apart from heat, there is pressure. Rock under high pressure get plastic and flows into the hole you just drilled."
]
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318f7l | why do i need to drink water more often than eat food? | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/318f7l/eli5_why_do_i_need_to_drink_water_more_often_than/ | {
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"text": [
"We use water for all sorts of things in our body, food is pretty simple, broken down and used or stored. food can be stored in different forms, water cannot be stored as easily. so we have to replenish more often because we cant store it as easily. "
]
} | [] | [] | [
[]
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||
4z0jze | how is code converted to software, how is graphics and code linked together? | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/4z0jze/eli5_how_is_code_converted_to_software_how_is/ | {
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"Code is a human readable set of computer instructions. You can for instance say that \"x = 1 + (2 / y)\" which is very easy for humans to understand. However computers are made up of billions of transistors and resistors that change currents in wires so to make it easier for computers to understand we compile the code into machine code. The above statement would be a sequence of numbers telling the cpu to \"read value of memory address 0x4893f5 into ebx, set eax to 2, run the division routine, add 1 to ecx, move value of ecx into memory address 0x4893a6\". There are thousands of these types of instructions that is part of the x86 instruction set (and even more for x86_64) and all of them is implemented by careful placement of transistors and resistors in the cpu.\n\nGraphics is just another piece of data like the machine code. However it is often used to produce an image to display on the screen. How this is done depends on the code of the software. A lot of applications use the gpu for this which is a special chip that is designed to work with large grids of data like images."
]
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||
5w2lug | why does watching a movie on a projector instead of a computer screen feel like a more satisfying cinematic experience? | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/5w2lug/eli5_why_does_watching_a_movie_on_a_projector/ | {
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"The way that things are presented to you has a strong influence on how you feel about what is being presented. For example, companies go through extraordinary lengths to brand themselves in a certain way, have their stores look a certain way, and engage with the public in a certain way. They want you to associate their image with their products and that is not on accident. Similarly you've internalized what you perceive as an authentic cinematic experience as something that is being projected and that is why you find it implicitly more satisfying.",
"Focusing close-up is a cue to your brain that you're looking at something close-up. That detracts from the illusion of watching scenes that take place further away than your screen. In my view, watching stuff like close-up dialogue on a huge cinema screen suffers from the opposite problem."
]
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||
fu1inw | all light we see is a mix of three colors with our rods. is how we hear sound the same? | Specifically, we perceive color three-dimensionally, how many dimensions does our perception of sound have?
Edit:
I'm apparently having trouble expressing the question. I'm not asking about the physical mechanism, but the number of capacities of sensation. Many people have trichromacy, some have tetrachromacy. Is there something like that for hearing? | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/fu1inw/eli5_all_light_we_see_is_a_mix_of_three_colors/ | {
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"text": [
"Sound is perceived by hair cells in the cochlea. Each hair cell is sensitive to a specific frequency. There are thousands of hair cells. So yes, there are similarities, but sound is perceived by a much more high-dimensional system. \n\nAlso our perception of sound has far higher time resolution and much lower spatial resolution than our perception of light."
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avzu35 | why aren't charger/data ports in phones shaped more like a headphone jack? | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/avzu35/eli5_why_arent_chargerdata_ports_in_phones_shaped/ | {
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"It might be related to the size and complexity of a headphone style jack, which has to grip the tip mechanically with a spring steel part.",
"Headphone jacks aren't really a great design, but they usually work OK if you only have a small number of signals. If you want to use a bunch of signals, making sure that each of them has a solid connection can get tricky. It's just not a great system from a mechanical point of view, and that can result in cruddy electrical connections. Particularly as things wear out. \n \nIt could also create more problems with crosstalk (interference). With a typical data port, you can keep signal wires from crossing. That gets a little difficult at the end of a round jack if there are a lot of signals. It also gets a little more tricky to keep the signal wires the same length, which is valuable with high speed signals. "
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5simkl | why do all currencies undergo inflation over time? | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/5simkl/eli5_why_do_all_currencies_undergo_inflation_over/ | {
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"That's an over-generalization. The underlying resources that give value to a currency tend to expand over time. In the rare instances where they contract over the long-term - such as the Japanese population declining - currency can go in the opposite direction and deflate.",
"This is a very broad topic to talk about, however I shall do my best, I've included a tl;dr at the bottom if you want to skip. I've tried to keep it brief but I could literally talk for days about this all in detail. Please let me know if you have questions or disagree with anything I wrote, I love talking about this stuff and would love to share what I have learnt with you.\n\nIn order to understand inflation, first we need to distinguish money. Money in the modern day is fiat money - it is not backed by anything such as gold or other precious metals - and is just a generally accepted form of payment. It only has value because we are told it has value. During the times of the gold standard, yup, you guessed it, it was backed against gold.\n\nInflation occurs when the supply of money is increased to the point where the value of the money starts to decrease. This is because there is a greater abundance of the money and since value is normally related to the quantity of a good (I say normally since there are goods where price does not change regardless of supply, i.e. oil/petrol/diesel), the greater the quantity the lower the value and vice versa.\n\n - As a side note, this is based on the assumptions of neo-classical thought. A more accurate description of reality is presented by the Post-Keynesian School of Thought, and is often referred to as Horizontalism, Structuralism (which itself includes more than just money theory) or the Endogenous money supply.\n \nEven though there is an increase of money, there is no simultaneous increase of material goods or assets, because this is fiat money remember. This can get out of control and lead to hyperinflation (examples include Post war Germany and Zimbabwe).\n\nSince money hasn't got a real physical value, it cannot be exchanged directly for anything physical, it is instead a form of payment, or an IOU of sorts. When you run out or run low on cash, you turn to the commercial bank to draw credit and borrow from them. You can only receive credit if someone else has debited their cash into an account (at least in the Neo-Classical School of Thought). This demand for money (credit or borrowings) increases, and is matched by an increase of supply. \n\n - I should note, that this is also matched by the effect of the money multiplier, where a bank will lend out a certain percentage of a deposit to create a new debit, which is then lent out again, etc. \n\nBanks (commercial banks specifically), create money from the money they are receiving from the people (and yes it is essentially fraud but its up to interpretation really). I should also note that if you are curious of horizontalism then the causality is the opposite, the supply of money is anywhere between 0 and infinite at any given moment in time, and will be granted to anyone so long as they are creditworthy (known as credit rationing), which in turns causes a deposit later on. \n\nAs the supply of money increases, and inflation rises, the purchasing power of the money decreases. You can buy less goods with the same amount, for instance £1 used to buy you 5 Freddo's, now £1 will buy you 2. You could argue that this is just a price change by the manufacturers, however, the root cause is the reduction of purchasing power.\n\nThe reduction of purchasing power forces consumers to turn to the banks once more and demand more credit to support their lives and needs, which in turn causes inflation to rise. It is an endless cycle, however, it is in reality a slow process, and normally, inflation is targeted through interest rate targeting policies by the Central Banks (like the Bank of England).\n\nDo not get me wrong though, inflation does not spell disaster for an economy. Generally speaking, it is beneficial, as inflation equates to growth. It means more people are spending money encouraging expansion of industry and services, causing increased trade both domestically and internationally. Problems only arise when there is no change in physical goods. If people are spending more but not getting more then it is not a good thing.\n\n\ntl;dr - The current supply of money is exhausted by the consumer (spent or saved). Money is demanded by the consumer in the form of credit (i.e. borrowings or overdraft). Money supply is increased by the banks to match the increased demand. The value of the money drops, as there is a greater abundance of said money. Inflation increases causing a higher demand for money again. The cycle continues unless it is controlled."
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2rr1wu | if you were to rip out a person's eyeball without snapping the optical nerve, and then made it face the other eyeball (aside from pain and whatnot) how would your brain put together the image? | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/2rr1wu/eli5_if_you_were_to_rip_out_a_persons_eyeball/ | {
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"I assume it would try its best to make \"sense\" out of the information.\n\nYou might get two superimposed images and just see a \"single\" eye.\n\nYou can definitely do this with mirrors and some plywood. ",
"This actually happened to my mother when she was young, she was a trainer for thoroughbreds and she was bucked off and into a brick wall, her face was destroyed and one of her eyes was hanging out. Unfortunately, she can't really recall what it was like. She said that she wasn't able to see anything, but that eye was also covered in dirt. Add to that the body is pumping out all sorts of chemicals to help with the pain and I imagine things are pretty muddled and it's hard to get a straight answer on it. :/",
"If you push on one of your eyes so they aren't looking at the same thing you can get an effect that would probably be similar. Right now I'm looking at text on the screen and when I push on my eye I see two copies of the screen in different locations in my vision. If you were to point your eyes at each other I imagine you would see both eyes within your vision, but it wouldn't make any coherent image.",
"The fact that your eyes are looking at each other is not the critical part of the experiment, as eye A looks like just another object to eye B. There may be some psychological experiences, but you may also have to be on hallucinogens to fully appreciate the meta-ness of staring at your own eyes.\n\nThe physiologically interesting bit of it is how your brain compensates to the images in each of your eyes being very different. You do this a lot actually, when you close one eye, you are essentially getting a full image of your environment and a full image of 'black'. Your brain knows that it should favour the open eye in its 'calculations' and does. You can approximate this with holding an object very near your eye, like your phone. You can still see your phone with eye A and your environment with eye B. Your phone will be blurry if it is this close, but that isn't because you are only viewing with one eye. If close enough, you will literally see two images next to each other with the boundary between them seeing very blurry but that you can't quite focus on. Unfortunately, its not much more interesting than that.\n\nCarnivores (and omnivores) have two eyes facing forward to be able to sense depth, as that is crucial for catching prey. However, herbivores (with exceptions of mammals without natural predators) generally have eyes that face outwards (opposite). They don't need the depth perception, they just need to cover as much of their environment to ensure there are no predators. These eyes are often not even possible to face the same direction. They interpret completely different images. We don't know how animals construct images in their brains, but for some it is definitely stitched together as well, and others..."
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ft195s | how can factories that use specialized machinery to produce a certain thing quickly change production to a completely different thing. (i.e. automobiles to ventilators) | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/ft195s/eli5_how_can_factories_that_use_specialized/ | {
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"It is never quick as you are thinking. You need to set up an assembly line for different components in a spare space and you need to order any needed assembly machines and you need to order the raw components going into the finished product and you need to assemble and train staff. You need te develop relationships with new vendors you have never dealth with before. That is all why I am thinking the auto manufacturers are the last place you would want to have building medical equipment you need quickly. The fastest and most efficient solution is to have companies already manufacturing the ventilators ramp up production. They already have trained staff. They already have assembly machines. They already have vendors that supply the necessary parts. They simply need to increase production by adding shifts or laying down a floor and putting up a tent and simply adding production lines. All this GM, TSLA, F stuff is simply political optics both for and against and terrible inefficient in reality."
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tp169 | what is 4chan and 9gag? | ... | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/tp169/eli5_what_is_4chan_and_9gag/ | {
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"4chan is a forum, comprised of unadulterated core of the internet. There are no rules in 4chan. It's the Internet, unrated, XXX edition. What you may see there may scar you for life.\n\n9gag is a website that takes funny content from reddit and rehosts on their website with a 9gag watermark. Redditors hate 9gag and hating on 9gag will garner you with karma."
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1ue0gr | why can't the hpv be cured? | While cancer and other deadly diseases can be cured in this day and age, why is it not possible to get rid of HPV (or the herpes virus) for good once you've contracted it? | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/1ue0gr/eli5_why_cant_the_hpv_be_cured/ | {
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"If i'm not misstaken you can get HPV vaccine... that is a cure.",
"There are exactly zero viruses that we know how to cure. Influenza? Nope. Chicken Pocks? Nope. HPV? Nope.\n\nWhen people give you medicine for viral infections its either an antibiotic (might treat symptoms, extremely bad idea) or a medicine specially designed for treating the symptoms. That's it. The medicine makes you more comfortable while your body defeats the virus. Because we simply don't know how to do it yet.",
"HPV is a virus. It's very hard to cure viral diseases - the drugs we have that kill viruses are very expensive, unreliable & often hurt the patient more than the virus will. All we can really do is take care of symptoms & wait for the body to clear the virus out. Most of the time, this happens quickly (like a cold or a flu). It can take several years with HPV & in some cases , like herpes, the virus might never really go away.\n\nIt isn't fair to say we can \"cure\" cancer - our best solution to getting rid of cancer involves trying to cut it out and hoping we don't miss anything or poisoning your body & hoping it kills the cancer without killing you."
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zrgv2 | why is interference with digital tv signals so seemingly mysterious and unpredictable? | I have two digital TV's in my house. Both are hooked up to a wall socket (with a splitter leading to two long RF cables) which is connected to an internal roof antenna with an amplifier and all the usual stuff connected to a powerful antenna.
Then yesterday, a problem cropped up. Basically, the "Secondary" TV stopped getting a signal, at all, and the first TV got a signal, but it was choppy and laggy, breaking up and distorting.
After trying a few different things, oddly my best solution was to unplug the splitter completely from the wall socket (with the two RF cables still attached), and the primary TV then received a perfect signal (keeping in mind it's NOT PLUGGED IN), and the secondary TV still didn't work.
After a bit of fiddling today, I discovered that one of the RF cables I had (there were multiple, joined with gender benders, for each TV) was obviously the source of the problem. Swapped it out and everything was fine, on BOTH TV's.
**My question is : Why is interference with DTV's so complicated? And at a really basic level, what is at work when (and everyone can relate to this), for example, you flick a light switch, or you just *close the fridge*, and your DTV momentarily distorts/gets interference?**
| explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/zrgv2/eli5_why_is_interference_with_digital_tv_signals/ | {
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"I'm not so great at explaining things, but here's my attempt:\n\n\"Digital\" signals are transmitted between the source and destination as analogue transmissions (voltages on a wire, radio waves, etc). The source will typically add redundant information to the stream when it converts from digital to analogue, and the destination can then use this extra info to reconstruct the signal if it's corrupted slightly.\n\nThe practical upshot of this is that the transfer from source to destination can be perfect, even if the connection is poor. However, if the connection becomes so bad that the destination can't rebuild the signal, then the transfer suddenly goes from being perfect to really bad.\n\nIn answer to your other questions:\n\nYour first TV worked without being plugged in because the wire itself was picking up the signal. An antenna is just a section of wire after all.\n\nSwitching other devices in your house on or off will cause the mains voltage in your house to bounce, this normally shouldn't be a problem because your digibox should be able to cope with it. If it can't however then the bounce will stop the digibox from working until it goes away.\n\nSource: Master's degree in electronic engineering."
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2nwkkw | how does dominos pizza tracker work? or is it not even real? | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/2nwkkw/eli5_how_does_dominos_pizza_tracker_work_or_is_it/ | {
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"They have buttons to press on their display screens that tell them what to make. In theory it's real and shows the real names of the people that are really logged in. But how real it actually is depends on how much you trust a bunch of teens to actually take it seriously and keep logged in as the right people and to not just mash the button at whatever time keeps them from getting in trouble regardless of what's actually happening. ",
"Former Domino's driver here.\n\nThe system watches everything, from when the order is logged, to when it's cleared from the make line (into the oven) to when it's dispatched by the driver. Then it goes by the estimated time for delivery. I never got any feedback on how accurate it was."
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2uf1hk | why to the label wood 2"x4"/ 2"x6" / 2"x8" etc when the true measurements are irregular and actually 1.75"x3.5" and so on | *they | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/2uf1hk/eli5_why_to_the_label_wood_2x4_2x6_2x8_etc_when/ | {
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"That is the original dimensions of the rough cut lumber. Older houses actually have 2\" x 4\" 2x4s but later they began to plane 1/4\" off each side for nicer wood, as a result, everything is 1/2\" smaller then what we call it.",
"It's actually 1 1/2\" x 3 1/2\".\n\nThe explanation saying the wood shrinks as it dries does not make sense as all dimensions up to at least 12\" are 1/2\" short of the real number. If this were a case of shrinkage, the larger dimensions would shrink more.\n\nI've heard for years that 2\"x4\" are the rough cut sizes, and in fact I've seen wood of that dimension in an American house from the 1920s. The surfaces of those studs and joists are very rough, lending credence to the other thing I've heard, which is that the wood is rough cut to 2\"x4\" (etc), then finished down to the size that's 1/2\" under the whole number.",
"In addition to what people have already said, it's good to know that the amount milled off of one-bys and two-bys is slightly different. \n\n[Example](_URL_0_) ",
"Thanks, I thought it was probably something like that.\nAs far as wood use from a tree I found this a while back that is a pretty cool representation. _URL_0_"
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8el93g | chimerism and how it happens in humans. | Asking due to [this comment](_URL_0_) from a /r/showerthoughts post. Credit to /u/yumyumsmoothie for the post mentioning Chimerism.
| explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/8el93g/eli5_chimerism_and_how_it_happens_in_humans/ | {
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"I heard about this case also, and just did a little research. Basically, two separate fertilized eggs merge together, and the DNA is combined. Certain parts of the body have different DNA. [Here](_URL_0_) is an interesting article on it.",
"Chimerism describes technucally two bodies who are combined into one. With plants you can do that quite simply: cut off a branch from tree A, cut one off of Tree B, connect branch A with Branch B and they will most likely continue to grow as one even though they have different DNA's. I do not know if Chimerism is possible in Reptiles/Amphibians/Birds (species that lay eggs) but it would be definately more difficult... in mammals such as Humans it happens in the womb, when the Organisms seemingly \"merge\" together at an early or sometimes even a bit later stage. Chimerism can only happen if you would have gotten twins but they merged into one",
"Two eggs are fertilized in a woman to make two embryos. Then, for some reason, the embryos fuse (they might not technically be embryos--they might be at an earlier stage, like blastocyst or something) and become one embryo. The embryo then grows into a person, like normal. But since it is made of half one set of genetic material, and half another, the resulting person (or animal) is made up of two different genetic sets. It could be the left side of a person's body is from one set of genes, and the right side from another. Or the top half from one set of genes, and the bottom from another, or a more convoluted mixture not easily separable into right side/left side, but rather certain organs from one set of genes, others from another. In Lydia Fairchild's case, we see reproductive organs from one set of genes, external body parts (skin, hair) from another. \n\nIt's thought that some cases of people with different color eyes could be due to chimerism, and of hermaphrodites (where, say, the left half of the body has masculinized traits and the right side feminized traits). \n\nIt's still pretty early after the discovery of chimerism, so it's hard to say how common it is. It requires some extraordinary amounts of genetic testing to uncover it and there is seldom a call to do that."
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3nrmv7 | when drinking, why don't liquids flow straight down instead of us having to swallow them? | Tried Wiki - couldn't get through the Latin medical terminology. When you drink something, you make an active decision to swallow the liquid already held in your mouth, why isn't this automatic so that the drink flows straight down? | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/3nrmv7/eli5_when_drinking_why_dont_liquids_flow_straight/ | {
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"It gives you the chance to hold something and breath without swallowing. Imagine if the substance was blood, poison, or saltwater: would you really want to swallow? By the same token, say your mouth is full of water and you try to breathe through your nose; do you want that water going into your lungs?\n\nIt's all to keep things from going where they're not supposed to go.",
"Multiple mechanism, I'm not totally aware of those though I have some ideas. Having to do that is a very good security against ingesting something you don't want. It also gives you the ability to choose wether you are breathing or swallowing something. \n\nAnother good part is that it allows you to be able to swallow even if you are laying down or with your head hanging down. If you had just a tube, simply bending to touch the floor could result in your stomach's content coming back inside your mouth. Not very nice.\n\nI suppose many people can probably give you more reliable explanation on the subject though",
"Because otherwise it would go into your lungs. the act of swallowing closes your flap (epiglottis) so that whatever you're swallowing goes to your stomach.",
"You said that the decision to swallow is active- and that isn't entirely true. It's a reflex triggered by a physical stimuli and requires there to be something in the back of your throat for it to happen. \nAt the junction between your trachea (the tube to the lungs) and your esophagus (the tube to the stomach) is a flap called the epiglottis. The epiglottis is always covering one opening and not the other. When you are breathing, the epiglottis is covering the opening to your esophagus (which prevents stuff from your stomach from getting out, but that's for another post). But when you have enough of a substance in the back of your throat, your swallowing reflex is triggered which 'flips' the epiglottis to cover the trachea so that the contents of your mouth can travel to your stomach instead of your lungs, temporarily stopping your ability to breath. \n\nWhile you can make the active decision to push the contents of your mouth to the back of your throat with your tongue, whether or not you swallow isn't actively decided by you. When you are holding a liquid in your mouth, you are actually preventing the swallowing reflex from being triggered, not actively deciding not to swallow. Try it out- flatten your tongue and let your drink flow to the back of your throat. You can't help but swallow! If this reflex didn't exist, you would drown in your own saliva. \n\nTLDR; because of your swallowing reflex. ",
"It *is* automatic, once it makes it past your epiglottis. Peristalsis occurs no matter what you put into your esophagus (including liquids), but you have to make the conscious decision to swallow it so it can make it past your epiglottis.\n\nIn a nutshell, the back of your mouth contains one opening that goes two ways- your throat, and your lungs. One of these has to be closed for food to even go to your throat, otherwise you get foreign substances in your airway (which is bad; for one, liquid in your lungs can cause pneumonia or outright kill you by dry drowning). You make the conscious decision so you eat (or in this case drink) instead of inhale.\n\n**tl;dr**, you have one opening in the back of your throat that goes two ways-- your digestive system and your respiratory system. Since you don't want to inhale food or drink, it requires an active decision to close your airway so food and drink goes the right way."
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4b83wk | why does the ethernet cable from the router to the modem need many conductors when the coaxial cable from the modem to the "internet" only need 1(plus sheath)? | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/4b83wk/eli5_why_does_the_ethernet_cable_from_the_router/ | {
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"Your modem (modulator-demodulator) changes the digital signals being carried by the Ethernet cable into an analog signal which is more appropriate for traveling long distances and needs only a single conductor. ",
"Ethernet *used to be* coaxial in the days of 10base2. It was a pain: you had to use at least BNC tee pieces for every machine and make sure the ends of the run were properly terminated. Token ring was worse, if you broke the ring it just stopped working. \n\n10/100/1000baseT use multiple twisted pairs which gets them a decent bandwidth, fairly simple connectors to assemble (coax can be a pain, it's heftier than cat5/cat6 and there are more restrictions on things like minimum bend radius) and also gives other options like power over ethernet and common wiring so you can flexibly soak wire buildings for networks, phone and alarms with significant cost savings.\n\nTl;dr coax cable is a pain to use in quantity. ",
"Think of coaxial cables as the equivalent of fiber optic cables for radio waves. The radio waves travel through the cable and they can't escape past the metal jacket. Coaxial cables are good for transmitting over long distances. However, the cables and the transceivers on either end are more expensive.\n\nEthernet cables send digital signals directly. They use twisted pairs of wires to reduce interference but it does not work as well as coaxial, so you find it used in shorter-distance applications.",
"When current travels down a metallic conductor, it creates a magnetic field surrounding the conductor. This field takes energy to establish, which comes from the signal being transmitted. The longer the conductor, the more energy is lost. If the signal travels down a long enough conductor, eventually so much energy is lost creating the magnetic field the signal can no longer be detected. There are several strategies for reducing this loss.\n\nOne strategy is to use two conductors carrying the same signal in opposite directions. The two conductors generate the same field, but with opposite sign. If the two conductors are close enough together, part of the magnetic field of each is cancelled out due to the opposite sign. This reduces the energy lost to the field. This works a bit better if the wires twist around one another. Two conductors arranged in this way are called a twisted wire pair. Ethernet cable has 8 wires arranged in 4 twisted pairs.\n\nThis \"self cancellation\" of the magnetic field in twisted pair cables is incomplete because the magnetic field of the two conductors does not completely overlap. The centers of the two wires are offset from each other due to the width of the wires.\n\nIt is possible to arrange a cable with two conductors so that both conductors have the same center. To do this, one conductor must surround the other. This is what we call coaxial cable. The central wire is surrounded by the sheath, and both have the same center, the axis of the cable. Both the central wire and the sheath are conductors. Both carry the same signal, in opposite directions. Since the center of the magnetic field generated by both is at the center of the cable, the self cancellation of the two fields is nearly perfect.\n\nThus a coaxial cable has a lot less loss than a twisted wire pair. Bandwidth is the opposite of loss, the lower the loss, the higher bandwidth of signal the cable can carry. You need several twisted pairs to get the same bandwidth as a single coax cable.",
"Coaxial cable carries the same radio-frequency signals that otherwise could go through the air. Channeling the signal through the cable is just a more efficient means of transmission. The cable company's transmitter is similar equipment to a TV or radio station, just with less amplification. For uploading, the modem on your end does the same.\n\nRadio frequency means that the transmitter mixes the signal with a carrier wave, and the receiver extracts the signal using the same carrier wave. Many signals can be carried on different carriers on the same cable, but they need expensive equipment to combine all their customers' signals, and you need a somewhat expensive modem to extract your particular signals from the mix. You wouldn't want to need a cable modem in every internet-connected device.\n\nEthernet is designed to run for shorter distances, and to connect to simpler, cheaper circuits. Only one data stream can be carried at any moment, and the router divides time on the cable between your different devices. The usual transmission protocol is called 1000BASE-T:\n\n* **1000** is the total capacity in megabits per second (Mbps).\n* **BASE** stands for baseband, as opposed to radio-frequency. The signals are carried as digital pulses of varying voltage, not mixed with a carrier wave. So no modem is needed.\n* **T** stands for *twisted pair*, as opposed to coaxial. Coaxial geometry is higher quality, so it could be used just as well, but when wiring an office building one wants to avoid the expense.\n\nOK, so both systems send signals over pairs of conductors. Why does Ethernet use 8 conductors instead of 2? Really, just because of tradition. In the old days, you could put four phone lines on four twisted pairs, and the wires and connectors for this became commonplace.\n\nToday, four pairs carry four times the data as one pair, which is good because 1000 Mbps is a lot of information. The preceding standard, 100BASE-T, only relied on two pairs, potentially leaving half the cable unused. Essentially, 8 conductors instead of 2 is just the difference between having 1000BASE-T and having \"250BASE-T\" (not a real thing).\n\n---\n\nTL;DR: Coaxial cable allows sending signals to different customers simultaneously. It can do this because it is higher-quality and more expensive. Common \"ethernet\" cables have the same number of conductors as the pre-ethernet cables they evolved from. But the extra conductors do help to improve their capacity.",
"Completely different transmission method. Also cat5/6 can transmit data at a much higher rate than coax, but no where near the distance of coax."
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48orfm | us serving sizes | can someone explain how US food products determine how much a serving size is? | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/48orfm/eli5_us_serving_sizes/ | {
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"The FDA has serving size guidelines, which are codified in [21CFR101.12](_URL_0_). Manufacturers are not required to use those sizes, but they usually seem to when it's a bulk product, or, for single-serving packages, try to get close-ish to the guidelines by dividing the package into whole fractions.",
"Depending on the food group and some other factors, this is governed by either the USDA or the FDA. The manufacturer indicates the category they believe that food/drink/etc falls into and if the government agrees, they use the standard serving size for that category. There's some leeway though. For example, cookies have a reference amount customarily consumed (RACC) of 30g, and the manufacturer could round to the nearest number of whole cookies as long as they still indicate number of grams and such.\n\nAFAIK the reference categories and amounts are still based on surveys from 1978 and 1988, because those were the last two surveys before the USDA helped implement the whole serving size practice in the early 90's. They're a compromise made by whatever task force was in charge between the amount the average American at the time (over 4) actually ate in one sitting, and the amount they *should* eat.\n\nThey started updating the values a little more than 10 years ago, idk how far along they are.",
"They can pretty much just make it up. That's why for things like soda, the serving size can depend on the size of the package.\n\nThe serving size for cooking spray is a 1/4 second spray. That way they can legally call it \"fat free\" even though it's 100% fat. The serving size is less than half a gram and they round the grams of fat to the nearest whole number - zero. "
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332qmq | there are more and more posts about how other countries have much better education systems than the us, so why does the us seem to have the greatest scientific advances? | Sorry if I sound like a condescending asshole. | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/332qmq/eli5_there_are_more_and_more_posts_about_how/ | {
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"When they talk about education system they usually arent talking about higher education like universities.. We have a metricfuckton of universities and dont forget about private corporations who have small armies of scientints and huge resources",
"Because if you have a PhD you can go straight to the front of the immigration line.\n\nEdit: Los Alamos National Laboratory in the city of Los Alamos new mexico has the highest per capita of PHDs in the country I've 'never' met an American one. I'm sure that's just chance but, it illustrates the point.",
"Most of the problems in the US education are related to poverty. Children from middle and upper class households in the US get an education at least equal to any other country. We just spend a lot less money on poor people in general.\n\n_URL_0_",
"There are two reasons that I can point to for this. The first is that despite the US lagging behind in education up through high school, it still has by far the best university system in the world. [This list](_URL_0_), while controversial, is absolutely dominated by American universities. \n\nThe second is that the US has the [largest public research and development budget of any country](_URL_1_), with China being a close second. ",
"1: We have a very strong intellectual property rights system that is reliably enforced. When an inventor secures a patent, that patent can be used to extract licensing fees even from really big companies. That makes the value of patenting something in the US very high, and ensures that inventors in the US feel like their time is being rewarded. Those rewards spur innovation.\n\n2: We have a very good system for company formation and for returning rewards to investors who provide the capital for new companies to form. This rewards inventors who try to commercialize and invention and provides an incentive for people to risk money & time to attempt it.\n\n3: We have the best higher educational system in the world. No other country even comes close. Our top universities have an unequaled track record at producing innovative thinkers who translate their ideas to practical knowledge. Those universities attract the smartest talent from all over the world, not just from the US. We make it possible for anyone, from anywhere to attend a US university; we have no limits on admission based on country of national origin.\n\n4: The US has a historical narrative of celebrating and rewarding innovation. Our national story is interwoven with threads like the Wright Brothers, Ford, Gates & Jobs, etc. Unique among nations we celebrate our inventors about as much as we do our priests, politicians, generals and celebrities. That creates an interest in invention and an understanding of why it matters at all levels of our society.",
"As others have said, our basic lower education (K-12) is not horrible, just not as good as some other countries. Our universities are very good and we have people from all over the world trying to get in. My husband teaches music theory at the undergrad and graduate levels. He has had students and colleagues from every continent. \n\nIt goes the other way too. We have a friend who teaches physics. He was one of the many hundred people from all over the world who worked on finding the Higgs-Boson particle. \n\nEinstein was German. The Curies were French (Pierre) and Polish (Marie). The Russians sent the first man to space. We have made a lot of advances in the US, but the whole world has made advances as well."
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c93pwp | how is the universe expanding, but it's not expanding *into* a larger containing space? | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/c93pwp/eli5_how_is_the_universe_expanding_but_its_not/ | {
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"Well I guess you cannot. Similarly to the statement that big bang is when time began. There was no time \"before\". Quotes because it does not make sens to use before it there was no time.\n\nUsing balloon analogy you can imagine that for 2D creatures living on balloon (they have no mean to comprehend 3D) their 2D world is simply expanding. It is not expanding into any 2D space they can comprehend.\n\nI am no expert, this Is just a way I understand this.",
"We cannot, this is one of the greatest questions ever bestowed upon mankind, there are many theories; some of which being an empty void of dark matter/dark energy. But we truthfully have no idea what is beyond the observable universe. We can only see up to 13.8 billion\\~ light years with current tech, the James Webb Telescope will surpass this by hopefully a minuscule fraction more, albeit, it will be used to see objects we have already seen via the Hubble but at a higher level of clarity than we have ever been able to achieve before. Anything beyond is simply so red-shifted that we will never know, this is also a scary thought, the universe is theorized to be expanding at a FASTER rate than we previously predicted and it is speeding up, for all we know there could be absolutely anything out there, things that we cannot even begin to comprehend.",
"Imagine a two-dimensional piece of a grid paper that stretches to infinity in all directions. This grid paper is all that exists and nothing can exist outside of it. Now, imagine that each individual grid is getting bigger and bigger. If you are a dot on the grid, you are not moving and expanding, but the distance between the gridlines is getting larger.\n\nIf you try to draw a line between the grid lines, it will start to take longer to draw from one side to the next. So the \"metric\" we use to measure the distance between the grids is changing.\n\nIn the universe, this is called metric expansion of space.\n\nEdit: You are correct that the balloon analogy doesn't work, because it is asking us to imagine that an object expanding into another space. Unfortunately, there is no exact analogy that will work here because we aren't talking about an object or a space, we are talking about *all objects and spaces*. At the least, human brains weren't evolved/designed to understand things on this scale, so the best we can do is come up with incomplete analogies or mathematical models.",
"Imagine that our universe is a bubble of air underwater, and it is rising to a lower depth. In this analogy, the bubble expands due to the lowering of hydrostatic pressure. We don't know exactly what the water is in this analogy (what lies beyond the observable universe) neither if there are other bubbles around (if there is a multiverse). \nWhat you're asking, whithin this analogy, is how our bubble didn't bump into other bubbles. There are no evidences to that ever happening, and if it ever comes to happen (after enough time for it's light get to us) would be clear signs of it in the Cosmic Microwave Background (due to a very likely temperature difference between our bubble and the other one at the time both became transparent to photons).",
"People keep talking about a balloon, but there really is no proper analogy. That one seems pretty good though. The problem is, there just is no reasonable answer because we cannot know right now. \n\nMy theory is that the concept of space is literal nonsense outside of our universe. “Distance” and “size” are only coherent concepts within our universe, created by the laws of our universe. Outside, we could expand forever, and nothing would change.",
" > How can we make sense of this?\n\nTo paraphrase Neil deGrasse Tyson, the universe is under no obligation to make sense to us.\n\nIt is our job to make sense of it.\n\nThe universe *is* expanding. Any two points in the universe are slightly further apart now than they were a minute ago (although the actual stuff may not be moving apart, if bigger things are holding it together, or pulling it inwards).\n\nWhat is it expanding into? That involves discussing what is outside the universe.\n\nExcept at the moment there is no clear framework with which to discuss \"outside the universe.\" The concept of \"outside the universe\" doesn't really make sense in the same way that \"north of the North Pole\" doesn't make sense. Sure, we can expand our definition of \"north\" to give \"north of the North Pole\" meaning, but we have to come up with that new definition and show it is reasonable before we can really justify using it.\n\nSo maybe the universe isn't expanding into anything, it is just expanding internally.\n\nMaybe that doesn't really make sense to us, but that's *our* problem, not the universe's. The idea of relative or curved spacetime doesn't really make sense until you get used to it (doing the maths helps a lot), ideas of wave-particle duality, or \"cat states\" or all sorts of other things are hard to understand when you first meet them (or even after you've spent a few years studying them). But that doesn't mean they're not real; it just means we need to spend a bit more time trying to make sense of them.",
"Don't think of the balloon analogy as us being inside the balloon, but on the surface of the balloon. \n\nWe're 2d, but expanding 3 dimensionally into an environment. So what are we expanding into? No idea. The answer is probably an equation that doesn't make a lot of sense anyways. Like n-dimensional matrix algebra.",
"You might find it easier to think of it more like the definition of \"distance\" is changing. That is: it's effectively the case that \"1 metre\" is becoming a smaller bit of distance in the universe than it used to be.",
"The classic analogy I’ve heard is the “Raisin bread” example. If you’re baking a pound cake of some kind, you know it starts as batter, and expands into your cake. Imagine the galaxies in the universe as raisins or chocolate chips in the batter. As it bakes, they all stay in the cake (our universe) and don’t move locally, but the space itself expands around them. The universe is a pound cake, there’s nothing outside the space as far as we know, but the cake itself can get bigger.",
"Ignore that the balloon is 3-dimensional and suppose the entire universe is just the surface of the balloon. Creatures in this universe can only move along its surface. They can't jump off of it or go below. Then the universe is 2-dimensional and there is ever more space between things as time goes on. Moreover, there is no center of this expansion (remember, the center of the balloon is not part of the universe. The entire universe is the surface). Of course, our universe isn't 2-dimensional. It's 3-dimensional. All the balloon analogy is saying is it is the space between things that is expanding as if more space is being created where there is space.",
"Did someone already post this?\n\n[_URL_0_](_URL_0_)",
"The following is not scientifically accurate, but it might help you visualise it better than a balloon.\n\nThink of the event horizon of a black hole. As you get closer to the event horizon, time slows down. Every second takes a minute, an hour, a day, until eventually time stops completely from the outside perspective.\n\nSpace works the same way. The edge of the universe is an event horizon for space. The closer you get to the edge, the more distance it takes to get any closer still, until eventually distance ceases to exist from an outside perspective. Every millimetre is a thousand light-years.\n\nExcept instead of the event horizon being a centre point like a black hole, it's the surface of a sphere and you're inside it. It's not so much that 'beyond' doesn't exist, it's just effectively infinitely far away. The universe 'expanding' just means that the distortion isn't noticeable until you're that bit closer to the surface of the sphere. The opposite of a black hole expanding and the event horizon getting bigger.\n\nTL;DR - Limits are weird."
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9ylvtl | gauge theory | I heard about it for the first time from Eric Weinstein on Joe Rogan’s podcast, but it all kind of went over my head. Every explainer video I’ve found goes into some pretty complex math - so if it’s possible to explain like I’m 5, reddit please help me. | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/9ylvtl/eli5_gauge_theory/ | {
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"I'm going to give this a red hot go for that sweet Karma. \n\n\nGauge theory: The first thing to take from this is the word gauge refers to a measurement, and isn't some dudes last name tied to a complex formula. Gauge can refer to things such as thickness, a space between objects, a measurement, or amount of something within a parameter, lets say number of jelly beans in a jar, or number of threads in your bedsheet. \n\n\nA general feature of all modern theories is that the fundamental fields cannot be directly measured, such as Electromagnetic field, gravitational field, of the forces between particles. However, some of the properties of the equation CAN be measured such as to derive a value for something that cant in itself be quantified. \n\n\nAn example would be perfect sphere lead balls that are equal in every way shape and form, but you do not know the diameter. You can take the amount of balls required, the elemental mass of lead, the formula for volume of a sphere from a given diameter and work backwards to obtain your answer. \n\n\nIn field theories, different configurations of the unobservable fields can result in identical observable quantities. A transformation from one such field configuration to another is called a **gauge transformation;** the lack of change in the measurable quantities, despite the field being transformed, is a property called **gauge invariance**. Since any kind of invariance under a field transformation is considered a symmetry, gauge invariance is sometimes called **gauge symmetry**. Generally, any theory that has the property of gauge invariance is considered a gauge theory. \n\n\nThen, you basically look at gauge theory as a constraint in physics - all changes induced by a gauge transformation have to cancel each other out when written in terms of observable quantities. \n\n\nFor an application in Gauge theory, consider the following: For example, in electromagnetism the electric and magnetic fields, **E** and **B** are observable, while the potentials *V* (\"voltage\") and **A** (the vector potential) are not. Under a gauge transformation in which a constant is added to *V*, no observable change occurs in **E** or **B**. \n\n & #x200B;"
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fupjio | why isn't there a pattern in prime numbers? | I have always wondered, even though prime numbers can be understood by a fifth grader. We were never able to crack the inherent pattern in them. I don't understand how something could just be random in Mathematics. | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/fupjio/eli5_why_isnt_there_a_pattern_in_prime_numbers/ | {
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"They have a kinds of pattern, because numbers that aren't prime numbers have a pattern.\n\nEvery second number after 2 is not a prime. Every third number after 3 is not a prime. Every 4th number after 4 is not a prime and so on. The numbers that aren't primes have a pattern of your can call it that",
"There are. There are buckets of patterns in prime numbers. [Matt Parker](_URL_0_) will happily show you one.",
" > I don't understand how something could just be random in Mathematics.\n\nWhat does random mean to you? Mathematics is perfectly capable of treating \"probability theory\", modelling randomness, in a deterministic way.",
"The prime numbers are at the heart of Number Theory, the most complicated branch of mathematics. In short, while there are various patterns (mentioned above), learning about primes is the current focus of many of the most brilliant minds on the planet. There isn’t a unified theory about primes.",
"Prime numbers are indeed just one of those things with no clear pattern which are difficult to compute in many aspects (finding next prime? determining if a large number is indeed prime, etc). In fact, that property is what common methods of encryption, such as those used on the web, rely on to be secure. A good article about that here: _URL_0_"
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3cgwpu | why do many democracies have a president? | Why don't countries highest power lie in the senate, so that the whole country(the highest-clearance actions) doesn't lie in one person's hands? Also, why the fuck does the opinion of one person determine whether nuclear weapons will be used? | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/3cgwpu/eli5_why_do_many_democracies_have_a_president/ | {
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"Because it just doesn't work practically to have a country led by 100+ people. When another country wants to communicate with it, who would they talk to? One of the 100? Wouldn't that de facto make that one guy the leader?\n\nTo the second part - because if we get launched against, we can't wait for 100 people to debate and decide whether to counterattack."
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6igkfs | how do craft like voyager and pioneer propel themselves through space? are the using the gravity of the bodies they pass by to slingshot along, or do they use thrusters of some sort and propel themselves along? a combination of both? | The idea of zooming around in space fascinates me and I wonder how it works. Are all the "directions" pre-programmed before the mission or are there people on Earth giving inputs? So many questions! | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/6igkfs/eli5_how_do_craft_like_voyager_and_pioneer_propel/ | {
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"They travel at constant velocity in a straight line because that's what Newton's law tells them to do. There is no friction, nothing stops them. They will continue moving at constant speed forever. Unless they encounter massive objects. The trajectory can be altered by the presence of celestial bodies, though.",
"Initial thrust of the Earth Rockets and ion thrusters.\n\nSpace is an (almost) perfect vacuum. There is basically no friction, no inherent force Fire a rocket into space and it will go at that speed for basically forever (unless you put some other force that changes it's trajectory). When we launch a deep space probe out of Earth's orbit, the vast majority of it's momentum came from that original rocket thrust.\n\nSometimes for fine maneuvering or to get probes to the planets/places we want them to fly to, our probes either equipped with a tiny engines called an Ion Thruster. Basically these engines use magnets to accelerate a small amount of matter, ions. This does not provide much thrust. If you put an ion thruster on your car, I doubt it could even overcome the friction set forth by the Earth's atmosphere/the ground to make your car move forward. However, as I said before, there is no friction in space, so even a tiny ion engine, with time, can alter the trajectory of a probe to get it where it needs to go. Remember, space probes can take months if not years to get to their destination, so even a lowly little ion engine is enough. ",
"The Voyager and Pioneer spacecraft specifically were accelerated by their launch vehicles which put them in space and on course. After that, they don't need any sort of propulsion because in space there's nothing to slow them down. They have small thrusters that use hydrazine to control which whey they point and to make minor course corrections, but they have no engines as you think of them, ion or otherwise. Pioneer 10 got a gravity assist when it flew by Jupiter but this was unnecessary since Jupiter was its only target. Pioneer 11 and Voyager 1 got gravity assisst at Jupiter to get it them to Saturn, and Voyager 2 used gravity assists at Jupiter, Saturn, and Uranus to fly by Neptune. Once they flew past the outer planets, their velocity was pretty much locked in. They're headed where they are headed at the speed they're at unless they encounter some force in deep space.",
" > How do craft like Voyager and Pioneer propel themselves through space?\n\nWe're used to stuff coming to a stop if it isn't being 'pushed' any longer here on Earth. But that's misleading. \n\nThe *normal* state of things is that if you give something a push, say accelerating it up to five miles per hour, it will travel at 5 miles per hour *forever* or until some other force acts upon it.\n\nOn Earth however, we have that other force ready to hand. The Earth and its atmosphere will exert drag. So if you are moving across the surface of the Earth, say in a car, your wheels are moving across the ground, and your body is slamming into the wind, and all of this is working against your movement, slowing you down until you and the ground are moving at the same speed. To keep going, you burn fuel to propel yourself.\n\nIn space, there's basically no atmosphere, and no ground. By and large, the effects on a craft are going to be minimal. Give it a push, and it will keep going. Unless you send it close to some other massive object, it's unlikely to deviate much, and there's so much empty space in space, that it will only get near another massive object if you *plan for it to do so.*\n\nSo stick a rocket on your ship, bring it up to speed x, and it will keep going x in the same direction for a very long time. "
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Subsets and Splits