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6gdmx9 | what exactly are the aspects of professional race car driving that make it so difficult? | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/6gdmx9/eli5_what_exactly_are_the_aspects_of_professional/ | {
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"This will vary a bit depending on which autosport you’re talking about, but generally speaking:\n\n* These cars are much more difficult to drive than a family sedan. \n\nSedans are built to be comfortable; racecars are built to be fast. They are uncomfortable, hot, noisy, bumpy, windy, the controls require a lot of raw strength, and you have to drive them nonstop for over an hour. [Assuming it’s not a dragster]. The drivers have to wear several layers of fire retardant and protective gear, gloves, and a heavy helmet. The speeds they travel at impart significant G-forces on the body. It’s a very athletic sport in a very inhospitable working environment. \n\n* The course is a lot more unforgiving than public highways. \n\nIt takes significant coordination and reflexes just to keep the car on the course, which may have (in some autosports) hairpin turns, blind turns and dramatic braking areas with little warning. Other cars may be racing alongside, literally inches away from a collision. And despite safety measures, there’s still a chance that a crash may be fatal — remember that they are literally risking their lives. In the 70s, drivers used to attend funerals on every weekend that they weren’t racing. \n\n* The cars handle completely differently than a family sedan. \n\nThey’re much more sensitive to driver inputs and completely unforgiving with mistakes. Many parts of the car will not work if you are driving too slowly - the engine will overheat, stall, cold brakes won’t slow you down, cold tyres won’t grip the turn, etc. There is often a danger zone where you are driving too slowly for the car to perform, but fast enough to get into a serious accident. These cars must be driven at racing speed, or walking pace, not in between. You can't learn to drive them gradually. \n\nParts of the car, also, can and will break down if you push them too hard — the driver has the ability to rev the engine high enough to ruin it, to brake hard enough to fuse the brakes, and to steer sharply enough to enter an unrecoverable spin. There are no safety margins coming to the driver’s aid; he/she must have the skill not to make those sort of mistakes in the first place. No anti-lock brakes, no traction control, no warning bells about someone in your blind spot, and the person behind you just might hit you if they're not careful. \n\nThese cars also have additional inputs not available in a family sedan: modern racecar divers manage suspension adjustments, brake bias [sensitivity], engine modes, fuel consumption, and shift gears, all while being alert to subtle changes in the car’s performance and discussing those on the radio while racing. In some sports they make multiple adjustments for every turn! Punishing your car more means you go faster and do better in the race. It also means your car is more likely to crash or break down. Saving wear and tear on the car so that fewer pitstops are needed also helps you do better in the race. It takes skill to find the right balance. \n\n* Remember that it’s a race. \n\nJust keeping the car on the track is not enough. When races with speeds of over 200mph are decided by yards that means that every aspect of the car and driver’s performance matters; it’s extremely competitive. A good line that saves a few inches every lap adds up. Braking slightly later, accelerating sooner, it all adds up. Modern racecar drivers can accurately position their car within a quarter inch, and can time their braking and accelerating to within tens of milliseconds. They drive so fast that there is literally not enough time to react to an approaching turn; they must anticipate them and start turning before they see the spot they want to turn at. An intimate knowledge of the circuit layout is mandatory. \n\nAnd while all of that driving is going on, you’re also trying to pass the driver ahead of you, and obstruct the path of the driver behind you who is trying to get by. And watch out for unexpected safety hazards. \n\n"
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9ohf02 | how does mold react when it comes into contact with bleach? | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/9ohf02/eli5_how_does_mold_react_when_it_comes_into/ | {
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"It dies. Bleach is toxic to all life. Essentially what it does is cause the proteins (the small molecular machines that do all the work in your cells) to unfold, in a similar way to what heat does. This means that the cells stop functioning, break apart and die. Bleach would do the same to bacteria, plants, and animals and so is dangerous to all forms of life, the same way heat is."
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2a47ih | did the german citizens who continued to live within germany during wwii really not know about the genocide that was taking place within and around their borders? | I'm a history buff and love studying the events that transpired during the 20th century, but this is a question I've never had answered.
Were the German citizens who weren't fighting in the war (directly) completely unaware of Hitler's 'Final Solution' or were they all just too ashamed to admit that they knew about it after 'The Allies' took Berlin? | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/2a47ih/eli5_did_the_german_citizens_who_continued_to/ | {
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"They were aware that something was happening, but they had much bigger concerns at the time. They were fighting wars on several borders, and constant bombings made them more worried about their own skins than whatever might have happened to their Jewish neighbors. \n\nSource: Grandmother who lived in Dresden during the firebombings. ",
"My grandmother was a child who grew up in Germany during WWII, and I asked her this same question. She told me that she knew there was definitely something going on, but she had other priorities, like fleeing air raids with her brothers and sisters and scavenging for food. She also said that she never dared ask what was going on, fearing her own safety. It was definitely a fucked-up situation, but as a child living in a time and place like that, self-preservation was the priority, and I can't blame her for that.",
"If someone wanted to know, they could've. I mean, a group of college students figured shit out about concentration camp (The Scholl siblings and their friends).\n\nThe extermination of the Jews and Slavs was also contained in Mein Kampf.\n\nHowever, the Reichssicherheit, together with the GeStaPo made sure that if you knew, you kept it to yourself, too, lest too many people got ideas about standing up to the Nazi party.",
"As others have said, one's own survival came first. Also, bear in mind that WWII shaped our current understanding of things like genocide and empire. Fifty years before, European powers killed off millions of Africans during the rush to colonize. It wasn't seen as a problem because it happened way over there where we didn't have to see it, and because the soldiers could romanticize it with stories of conquering the savages. \n\nEven if a German civilian knew that people were being killed, he probably didn't know how big the operation was or how awful the conditions were in the camp. When the Soviets took the Lublin camp in July 1944, it was mostly destroyed, but we began to see first-hand what they'd been doing. As we found more camps, more prisoners' belongings, and more survivors, the scale of the killings became apparent.",
"When I visited dachau a few months ago (Munich) I learned that the local residents were aware of the concentration camp, but not of the brutal detail of the killings that went on right at their doorstep. When the American army arrived, they were so horrified at what they saw that they brought in locals from the surrounding area, who were forced to help the clean up and disposal of the bodies. There are photos on the wall of the crematorium that capture the shock and angst of these people as they witness what had happened. "
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a7mkrv | how do private number plates on cars work in the usa? | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/a7mkrv/eli5_how_do_private_number_plates_on_cars_work_in/ | {
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"When you register the car, you can either accept a \"generic\" set of numbers and letters or you can pay extra to have a custom plate, sometimes referred to as a \"vanity plate\". \n\nUnlike in the U.K., if the ownership of the car changes hands, the license plate also changes. You can take your own license plate and move it to a different car if you wish or you may get a new one, but one license plate cannot change owners.",
"It's a state by state thing, but it's generally pretty cheap. Each state has a department of motor vehicle of some sort that manages the program.\n\nHere's a link for my state.\n\n_URL_0_",
"The department of motor vehicles (DMV) is run individually by each state so each state has their own license plate. That's a super easy way to tell where a car is from because each design is completely different. \"Personalized\" or \"vanity\" plates in each state are a little different but if you're willing to pay for them you can get them to say literally anything as long as it's 7 characters or less, someone doesn't already have it, and it's not offensive. If you want it to say MYTRUCK you can get it as long as nobody else has it. If you want LUKE, you can get it. But you can't get BIGDICK or anything like that. They'll deny it. If you live here or are moving here, Google the state and DMV. You'll find the page and then you'll need to dig a bit for license plates and you'll find them. ",
"I'm from Canada, but I'm pretty sure it's the same as the states.\n\nYou go to your motor licence issuer (in the US it's the DMV) and ask to get the plate. There is a list of off limits words and phrases that you can't use, that includes swears and lude things. As long as someone in your state/province doesn't already have the phrase taken, you can use it.\n\nIn the Canada, the character limit is 7, so you have to get creative",
"At a high level, it’s just a means to boost revenue. Personalized plates still have to meet some restrictions on length, and there are mechanisms to try to prevent offensive terms from getting through...but that probably varies from state to state.\n\nThe big thing about them is that they cost more, but some of the funds can go to other causes. In Texas, there’s a Be a Blood Donor plate that costs $30 ($70 if you want to personalize the text). But a portion of the plate fee is donated to non-profit blood centers in the state.",
"First each state has its own rules so it varies from state to state. That leads to a situation like in Virginia which has a really high number of personalized plates per capita just because getting one is cheaper compared to most states. \n\nBeyond that it's pretty trivial. When you register the car and apply to get the plate either online or in person you can check the box asking for both personalized letters or a plate with special graphics (like if you want to show your school colors) and then you just pay the fee. You'll get temporary paper tags until the new ones come in the mail. ",
"In my state we can get pretty much any combination of letters and numbers we want, on a great number of plate designs, as long as it is the right number of digits and isn't profanity or similar. You can verify the license number isn't already taken and even see what it looks like on various plate designs on the [web site](_URL_0_), it's pretty fun.",
"You've gotten some good answers, but since every state has different laws it's better to post questions like this in r/askanamerican."
]
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64uawx | why did the outcome of the usa election matter so much to russia? | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/64uawx/eli5why_did_the_outcome_of_the_usa_election/ | {
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"Truthfully; because Russia sees itself on the outside, looking in, and they're desperate to retain their seat at the table, particularly given the fact that their chair is, due to historical reasons, just as big as that of the US.\n\nAs the world becomes more globalized and interconnected, Russia's power wanes. This is primarily because the key products that Russia supplies to the rest of the world are energy products, namely oil and natural gas. Worse, the world is beginning to shift away from those products as the threat of Global Warming makes fossil fuels less palatable, such that even *China* is starting to distance themselves from it.\n\nIn many other industries, they are simply unable to compete against the West in the form of Europe and the US (which produces better quality products) and the East in the form of India and China (which produces the same products for less). You can already see the attrition in industries where Russia was formerly at the forefront; their aviation industry in particular, which was once the equal to their American rivals, is in absolute shambles, as Mikoyan-Gurevich struggles to remain relevant, and Sukhoi is barely able to make ends meet by continually updating a legacy fighter on an ancient airframe as opposed to producing something new, and because the aviation equivalent of \"customer support\" that the US companies provide is far-and-away superior to anything the Russians are able to afford.\n\nFinally, Russia sees NATO as an existential threat to itself. Whether or not it is or not is a pretty complicated question, but from Russia's perspective NATO is Russia's primary geopolitical foe. And NATO is functionally run by the US. This is the main reason why Russia spends 5.4% of their GDP on their military, as opposed to the US only spending 3.3% or so. And yet, even with this increased level of spending with respect to GDP, their military is kind of falling apart, particularly their Navy, and probably a fair fraction of their nuclear arsenal that (in their eyes) is the *only* real defense against NATO that they can count on because of MAD.\n\nAs a result, the already poor Russian economy is set to get poorer, with it's only advantage (oil) rapidly fading from relevancy, with their common geopolitical foes getting stronger and stronger, and their only real allies (China) cosying themselves up to the West a little more each day, entirely because the West has money and markets that Russia, as a country of only 140 million, just *doesn't* have, and can't sustain.\n\nSo Russia interferes in the election, functionally backing a candidate that is more palatable to their interests, and who is (in their eyes) the only possible strategy with which to be able to sustain their relevance and power on the global scale."
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7kq4jx | why does it normally hail shortly after really hot weather? | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/7kq4jx/eli5_why_does_it_normally_hail_shortly_after/ | {
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"Hail is moisture that has been lifted by unstable air currents (that you find in hot weather) into higher and colder air were it freezes into hail. ",
"Hail is created by strong updrafts. Updrafts are created by hot weather (warm air rises).\n\nIts really cold at the altitude that clouds are at. When precipitation falls, it starts frozen, then melts as it drops into warmer air. This gives us rain. \n\nIf there is a strong updraft, the falling ice gets blown back up into the clouds before it falls far enough to melt. When this happens, a new layer of ice freezes around the existing ice crystals, making them bigger. This process repeats, and the ice crystal gets bigger and bigger until it becomes a hailstone. Eventually, the hailstone gets heavy enough that the updraft cant push it back up, and it falls to the earth. So the stronger the updrafts, the bigger the hailstones get."
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9ijxxb | some batteries can't be recharged while others can | Just bought some alkaline batteries and saw a label stating "Not rechargeable", but in my head I am thinking the battery has a charge already. Why shouldn't I recharge the battery? Surely a battery that comes in a fully charge state can be recharged? | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/9ijxxb/eli5_some_batteries_cant_be_recharged_while/ | {
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"Rechargeable batteries use a reversible chemical reaction to generate electricity, and are designed to be able to be recharged. Alkaline batteries (and other non-rechargeable types) use a chemical reactions that aren't meant to be reversible, and often have other differences to rechargeable batteries (e.g. higher voltage, longer operating life, cheaper to make). ",
"Alkaline batteries *technically* can be recharged but they shouldn't be for safety reasons. Charging a battery with that chemistry creates gases and most consumer batteries aren't vented which means even if it doesn't explode, it'll very likely leak and ruin the charger or the device it's in. Implementing a vent system that wouldn't spill the contents while being used in any orientation wouldn't be practical when replacements are so cheap.",
"It just depends on the type of chemical reaction in that type of battery.\n\nFor some reactions, after the reaction runs and makes electricity, you can put electricity back into the \"exhaust\" chemicals and get the original chemicals back. That's a rechargeable battery.\n\nFor some reactions, if you put electricity back into them it makes the wrong chemicals, or it makes the right chemicals but in the wrong places, or maybe it just gets hot.\n\n[Apparently for alkaline batteries](_URL_0_), you can recharge them slowly with a special charger and it will *kinda sorta maybe* work. People claim to get a few extra charges (like, only 5) before it just stops working or starts leaking (the outside is damaged and the chemicals ooze out) since the outside of the battery reacts too. And each time you charge it it holds less charge.\n\nYou could always take out all the used up chemicals, and put in fresh chemicals, which is called \"making a new battery\" :P"
]
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1u2nlr | why can't i take a full on clear picture of the night sky with all of its stars with my iphone? | I get like one only. | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/1u2nlr/eli5_why_cant_i_take_a_full_on_clear_picture_of/ | {
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"The sensor in your phone's camera isn't sensitive enough.",
"The sensor can't capture the light from such faint input in such a short amount of time. If you were able to leave the shutter open longer and use a tripod, more light would come through and hit the sensor.",
"The iPhone (and most point-and-shoot cameras, for that matter) tries to automatically decide how long to collect light. On a bright day, enough light is arriving that the picture only needs a short exposure. On a darker day, the picture needs a longer exposure.\n\nShooting the night sky is tricky: most of the sky is black, and only a few pinpoints in the sky emit light. The iPhone can't really determine how long of an exposure to use as a result. Even with a dSLR, you probably need to manually control the exposure to collect light for tens of seconds or even minutes.\n\nYou can download some apps that let you take better pictures of the night sky with your iPhone. For example, [see here](_URL_0_).\n\n"
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2xcwrq | how do the hsbc key authenticators work? | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/2xcwrq/eli5_how_do_the_hsbc_key_authenticators_work/ | {
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"Key authenticators usually work in a similar way. There is a clock and a secret, unique algorithm in the key generator, with the algorithm known to the verifying party. The algorithm will take the input time, round it to the nearest 30 seconds or so, and run it through the algorithm. The algorithm generates from that \"seed\" a short series of digits, usually about six, which the verifying party can determine match what happens when they do the same thing.\n\nThis is secure because even if an attacker knows the six generated digits and the time they can't figure out the algorithm from that data, so the next code is completely unknown. And in 30 seconds the intercepted code is useless so that isn't a danger."
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7yit5l | why do commercial flights take longer going to a destination then coming back when they fly the same distance and course? why can planes fly faster at higher altitudes? | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/7yit5l/eli5_why_do_commercial_flights_take_longer_going/ | {
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"text": [
"They take longer going west because they're heading against the general wind direction. Same route going east, the wind is helping so it's faster.\n\nHigher altitude: the air is thinner, less friction."
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2zrucr | how do people with no money buy businesses? | So many stories of immigrants coming to this country with no money and they start a business and lead to success but where do they get the money to start that business or buy that franchise. Or people who own franchises or purchase existing coffee shops and such. Where the heck do they get that capital? | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/2zrucr/eli5_how_do_people_with_no_money_buy_businesses/ | {
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"They do have money. How do you think they bought the $1000 plane ticket",
"They generally work more than one job get some savings together and put together a business plan and take the plan to the bank with their savings and borrow the money for the business venture."
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47d1yb | why does a small wet stain on a shirt dry in minutes but a wet shirt takes hours? | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/47d1yb/eli5_why_does_a_small_wet_stain_on_a_shirt_dry_in/ | {
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"Because a wet shirt has *much* more water soaked into it than a little spill.\n\nOn top of that, the air itself can only contain so much water vapor, so if the air isn't particularly hot or dry, the shirt might saturate the water in the air all by itself, requiring waiting for the wetter air to disperse before more water can evaporate.\n\nFinally, if the water is soaked into the shirt, less water surface area is exposed to the air, so it will take longer to dry as a result. This is especially true if you are trying to wear the shirt, since the heavy water will pull the shirt down against your skin, meaning even less surface area for the water to evaporate from. This makes a pretty big difference in and of itself and can easily be tested by just taking two pieces of cloth and getting both wet with the same volume of water. Get one wet by just pouring the water in one spot so that it forms one big wet spot, and get the other wet by sprinkling the water around a bit instead. You'll notice that even though the same amount of water was used, the sprinkled one will dry faster."
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24nkai | what does the jockey do during a horserace and what is the "skill" behind horse racing? | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/24nkai/eli5_what_does_the_jockey_do_during_a_horserace/ | {
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"The Jockey can cause the horse to speed up or slow down. The horse does not run at \"full speed\" for the whole race. Horses can't run that far at top speed. So the Jockey decides when to change the pace.\n\nThe Jockey also decides where in space the horse should be relative to other horses and the rail. The Jockey guides the horse towards or away from the rail during the race to minimize the distance travelled but avoid other horses or block a horse from trying to pass.\n\nThe Jockey monitors the horse during the race. It is possible for a horse to become injured but not to the point of having to be killed if the Jockey identifies a problem before it becomes a catastrophe. Pulling up a horse before it becomes lame can save a sizable investment (plus the emotional trauma of killing a beautiful and intelligent animal).\n\nThe Jockey puts \"the human element\" into the race. Dogs race without people and its pretty hard to corrupt a dog. But you can corrupt a Jockey. Throwing a race can tilt a lot of money to the bettors who are in on the fix. The risk of a corrupted race adds more excitement to the sport and adds a profitable edge to some bettors' action."
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2cq4nr | why are people saying that the ebola virus is not as transmittable as suggested? | I keep hearing news pundits and doctors saying that the Ebola virus is not transmittable through the air, only through direct contact with fluids. Since we release fluids from our mouths every time we breathe, cough/sneeze, isn't the Ebola virus also very transmittable through the air? | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/2cq4nr/eli5_why_are_people_saying_that_the_ebola_virus/ | {
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"text": [
"It's transmittable through fluid particles when you sneeze, and those particles are ^not ^air",
"~~A lot of diseases can survive in the air or on surfaces for long periods of time.~~\n\n~~Ebola can't. Unless you directly get some of an infected person's bodily fluids inside you, you're extremely unlikely to contract it.~~\n\n~~So while Ebola is super deadly, it's not really all that contagious, when compared to most other viruses we worry about.~~\n\nIt would appear I'm wrong about this (thanks /u/zombieJesus27); Ebola actually *can* survive on surfaces. \n\nUpon further reading though, I still think zombieJesus may have slightly overstated his case. Yes, it's true that Ebola doesn't insta-die when you take it outside of the body (although it still cannot survive in air), but it *is* meaningfully less virulent than the sort of virus we'd be really worried about spreading like crazy through a sanitary first world country.\n\nBottom line: don't worry too much. But also don't spread misinformation like I accidentally did earlier."
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2i5n1n | modern and post-modern discourse | Please be as fairly comprehensive on both as you can without making it hard to understand.
I am ESL so use easy english if possible too.
Thank you. | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/2i5n1n/eli5_modern_and_postmodern_discourse/ | {
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"I can fill in philosophy.\n\nModern philosophy saw science and scientific thinking as being very important. People and things could be handled like variables and all calculations could be made on equations.\n\nFrom this we saw Kantianism which sought a sort of moral calculation was constantly happening in our head, and he wrote about it. Political philosophy saw people as mere actors who would act exactly the same regardless of the person acting the role. Phenomonology formed to look exclusively at experience objectively. In the United States pragmatism rose as a method of verification (fancy word for proving something is true).\n\nModernism was a break from older philosophy that relied on floaty spirits and saw experience as being important in understanding reality.\n\nPostmodernism begins with Ludwig Wittgenstein who was a modernist originally but an unpublished work was published on his deathbed to reveal some new depth. He had previously seen language as being a group of characters that described a reality.\n\nBut he began to do an anti-foundation approach in which language had no primary base. That is, a chair isn't a chair because we envision a chair and think a chair. A chair is a chair because it fits into a particular context. A research chair isn't a person but a position... and no one would think of it as a thing you sit on. Wittgenstein argued that all of philosophy is just a language game. Most postmodern philosophers reference Wittgenstein as the definitive source.\n\nFollowing him were a long line of thinkers who began to think of philosophy without a foundation or assumed starting point. They're much more challenging reads but a lot of these guys are able to create proofs without anything being assumed.\n\nSome great English language reads for postmodernists are Richard Rorty, Donald Davidson, Jean Baudrillard, Michael Foucalt, and Wilfred Sellars."
]
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|
1ebiu2 | if i shine a flashlight towards the night sky, how far does the light travel? | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/1ebiu2/eli5_if_i_shine_a_flashlight_towards_the_night/ | {
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"It just keeps on going until it hits something. \n\nThat could be a bird, a plane, a cloud, the ISS, another planet, a distant galaxy...\n\nThe torch is a pretty weak light source, and the light intensity follows an inverse square law (IE if you're \"X\" times the distance away from the torch, the light is only 1/X^2 times as intense). \n\nThis means that fairly quickly the light your torch produces is lost to the human eye. But the actualy photons/waves (however you want to think about light) will just keep going."
]
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||
b7quij | how do a pair of headphones create a 3d / surround sound effect? | For example when I'm playing a game I can tell wether the person is above me or below me, in front or behind me. But how do headphones create this sound. Isn't there just 2 drivers, one in each earpeice so how would they make it sound like there is something in front of me or behind? | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/b7quij/eli5_how_do_a_pair_of_headphones_create_a_3d/ | {
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"Due to the way different frequencies in sound bend at different rates, there is very subtle tonal differences in sounds that come from below, above, or behind you when compared to those directly in front or to one side. By applying these frequency alterations to a sound it can be made to seem like it is coming from those locations even if you only have stereo headphones.",
"They use something called the [Head-Related Transfer Function](_URL_0_). Basically, when you hear something, the sound will have different volumes in each ear depending on which side it comes from, it will hit one ear slightly before the other if it's coming from the side, and your head and outer ear will boost or reduce certain frequencies coming from different directions. With HRTF, the software can simulate all of these effects (particularly the last one, since it's the most difficult to recreate) to simulate a sound coming from a particular location in space."
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"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Head-related_transfer_function"
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5a1hwm | censorship of sex/nudity but not graphic violence on american tv. | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/5a1hwm/eli5_censorship_of_sexnudity_but_not_graphic/ | {
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"Ultimately it's because of the kids. A kid can watch one character bash the head of another character and whether it's blood on the floor or a cartoonish misshapen head the kid can say wow that's going to hurt that's going to cause damage Etc and assume that that's a bad idea. \n\nOn the other hand a kid watching sexual acts on TV may be physically aroused, and not necessarily see their direct consequences which would be pregnancy, stds, and broken relationships. \n\n\nThat's the best I got."
]
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[]
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||
6kxvdu | are all the environmentally conscientious counties just wasting their time with their climate change fighting efforts if other major polluting countries don't care and are doing nothing at all? | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/6kxvdu/eli5_are_all_the_environmentally_conscientious/ | {
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"text": [
"Climate change is a matter of how much. So even if other people are making it worse, you can still choose to make it *even worse* or to reduce your part.",
"It depends on your definition of 'wasting time'. \n\nIf you're asking if countries attempts at stopping climate change are futile if other countries don't bother, yes, they could be.\n\nBut there's plenty of benefits for fighting climate change regardless of the ultimate outcome. Investing in green and alternative energies can be a major boost to an economy. "
]
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8paca3 | why do non important things get "stuck" in our memory? | I get understand why the important stuff, how to drink water, or how not to get hit by a car when crossing the road gets ingrained into permanent memory, but why do really unimportant, bad things like certain songs get stuck in our memory?
For example I was in a shop today which was playing Ed Sheeran. Nothing against him personally, but I really dont like his music at all and it's not my thing, yet it's been stuck on loop in my head for a few hours now, driving me insane. Is my brain just trolling?
TLDR: why does unimportant stuff get "stuck" in our memories when we have no need for it? | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/8paca3/eli5_why_do_non_important_things_get_stuck_in_our/ | {
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"Richard Dawkins introduced the word meme to explain the behavior of thoughts, songs and ideas. A meme would be any idea, song, etc that reproduces itself within the human culture, and it needs to be within human minds to do that. One might invent an idea, song, etc and share it with another person whose mind automatically copies the song and perhaps whistles or sings it out loud - thus spreading the infection. The establishment pretty much ignored Dawkins' ground-breaking realization, but I think it's extremely useful. Ad agencies know exactly how this stuff works, but to answer the question of -\"Why do they get stuck?\" is beyond our ability. Most likely whatever got stuck there was attracted by your past experience.",
"From a cognitive psychology perspective, we encode and store a lot of information over the course of our lives. Information relating to procedures (e.g. riding a bike, how to write) or facts (e.g. 1+1=2, song lyrics) are often built up on and automatized over time. How these kind of things become part of our memory depends on a couple of things, but the most important one is your attention to it. You cannot process and remember (i.e. learn) things you do not pay attention to. It just so happens that pop music is...well popular and it will likely be played very often. This gives your brain a lot of opportunities to listen and pay attention to the song lyrics (even though you don't want to sometimes). You basically are rehearsing the lyrics in your head every time you hear the song! This rehearsal keeps the memory fresh in your brain, so it can be really hard to forget. Why exactly the song gets stuck in a loop in your mind is a different story. Some psychologists call this phenomenon \"involuntary musical imagery\" or \"earworms\". Songs that get stuck in your head have what they call \"melodic contours\" that are consistent across many different songs. I am less knowledgeable about this particular topic as it pertains to how music affects your brain, but I hope that my more general explanation can give you a better idea of what's going on."
]
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3m7c7d | how does coffee take on different notes of flavor? | I'm currently enjoying a cup of Bananas Foster flavored coffee and was wondering how roasting companies/ bean growers are able to make the beans take on notes of vanilla, banana, rum, brown sugar, etc. | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/3m7c7d/eli5_how_does_coffee_take_on_different_notes_of/ | {
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"Usually its not the coffee making those tastes. Their other substances added to it afterwards. There isn't a vanilla coffee plant unfortunately.",
"For flavored coffee it's simple, just add whatever flavoring you want as is done with candy for example.\n\nFor real coffee it's a bit trickier. There are 2 main things to consider:\n- Some flavor is already in the bean and it depends on the kind of plant it came from, like Robusta or Arabica, where it grew, in what soil, getting how much sunlight.. Not much different from getting different kinds of peppers or tomatoes\n- Roasting. This has a huge impact on the final result. Over-roast and you get the common charcoal tasting coffee no matter how amazing the beans were to begin with. Under-roast and the complex flavors don't really come to life. Striking the right balance is an artform perfected over time. \n\ntl,dr different beans, different roasting gives different coffee.",
"There's really two sides to this - flavoured and unflavoured coffee.\n\nFlavoured coffee is the simplest to explain. You want a vanilla flavoured coffee, you just add some vanilla flavouring to it.\n\nIn the case of unflavoured coffee, it's not that the coffee actually tastes of those things as such, it's that someone will have tasted it and will want to describe the taste to someone else. I have in front of me a bag of coffee beans that's described as tasting of \"Milk chocolate, fruit and nut\" - that's not to say that the roaster has thrown those things in with the beans, but that when they had a mouthful of coffee made with those beans, those are the things that the taste made them think of.\n\nIt's exactly what wine people have been doing for years - a wine that tastes of plums or apples won't have either of those things, but will have a taste reminiscent of it. The same thing happens when you're describing an unfamiliar food to someone - the classic example of that being \"tastes like chicken\"."
]
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d00psh | no pain during brain surgery, but why are headaches common? | ELI 5: How is it possible to have open brain surgery while fully awake (not narcose) with drilling and other rummaging in the brain goop (as apparently there are no nerves).
But a lack of coffee or water or whatever gives me a feeling someone is hammering nails into my eyes or other parts of the head?
This question is actually my follow up (didn't want to hijack the other ELI5) to another post about headaches location. I am wondering about this for quite some time. | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/d00psh/eli5_no_pain_during_brain_surgery_but_why_are/ | {
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"The physical brain as an organ can't feel pain but the scalp can, the scalp is numbed during a lot of surgeries to prevent pain while the brain has no need to be",
"I don't know anything about the physics of headaches.\n\nHowever, I can answer the \"brain surgery\" part. It's actually quite simple: there are no pain receptors in the brain.\n\nNormally, any pain signal starts with a receptor somewhere detecting that something is wrong, and sending a signal about that. The signal is transmitted through nerves, until it reaches the brain, that can treat this information. Your skin is full of pain receptors. Most of your body have them as well, in various concentration. But despite the central place of the brain in the nervous system, there is not a single pain receptor inside the brain. \n\nAs a result, no matter what happens inside the brain, no receptor is going to be triggered - > no pain.\n\nNote that there are still such receptors on the scalp, outside the skull, of course.\n\n & #x200B;\n\nNow why do headache even exist, in the case? That, I don't know.",
"Because a headache isn't a \"brainache\" The source of the pain isn't inside your brain. While the brain itself cannot feel pain, the face, eyes, ears, sinuses, neck, scalp, skull, and jaw areas as well as the meninges (membranes that surround the brain) are full of blood vessels, muscles, and other tissues that contain nocioceptors (nerves that sense pain.)",
"The brain itself has no pain receptors so it can't actually feel itself.\n\nThe sinuses and scalp and ears and jaw musculature *do* have pain receptors, and headaches originate from one of those.\n\nThe brain takes up a lot less space than people often assume. Directly behind the eyes and brow ridge where headaches typically reside is sinus cavity, not brain."
]
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6fb3bn | why do hospitals and asylums get abandoned? | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/6fb3bn/eli5_why_do_hospitals_and_asylums_get_abandoned/ | {
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"There are many different factors that could cause this. Some of the most common ones are the age (structural damage, disrepair, etc) and limitations of the facility (can't fit enough patients, the majority of the equipment is outdated and can't be easily replaced, electrical concerns, etc) result in it being shutdown and another facility being constructed.\n\nIn more rural areas, it's not that common for a facility to lose it's funding so multiple facilities are shutdown in favor of one central location. If it is completely run by a private company, they could also go out of business or determine they are not making enough money to continue operations.",
"The Asylums were often abandoned because funding from the Federal Government and State Governments that provided for the indigent people in them was ended in 1950s. Some argued for the stopping because it was felt that institutionalization was not good. But instead of providing a replacement for the asylums people with severe mental illness have mostly been abandoned by the government if their families and friends are not able to provide for them. \n\nHospitals tend to shut down if better facilities are built nearby, or if the population of the region drops below a level that can support the hospital. ",
"Key point adding to the other comments here:\nHospitals and asylums can get abandoned for all the reasons mentioned. But, lots of places get abandoned, schools, churches, houses, offices, outbuildings (Barns, warehouses and the like), factories, etc.\n\nYou might think of hospitals and asylums getting abandoned more because you hear about more of them which are abandoned. \n\nOther buildings which have been abandoned tend to be used again. Either new people or businesses move in, or they are reused for a new purpose (Think of factory space being turned into apartments, or schools turned into offices). Hospitals and asylums make this very difficult for a few reasons. First, they tend to be very big buildings, so buying them is super expensive, and often you need to buy them from the government, which is tricky. Second, they tend to have very specific floorplans, and lots of space and features dedicated to things people don't need (Morgues, containment features, specialized ventilation), and older facilities might have cemeteries, biohazard issues or other complicated land use on site. Finally, they tend to have a reputation. People don't want to buy an apartment that was once part of a mental institution. \n\nThis last adds to the impact, because if there's a creepy abandoned asylum, you hear about it in local stories and sometimes on documentaries about the history of a region or ghosts and so on.\n\nConsider a school, which can be abandoned essentially for all the reasons mentioned by other posters: Technology, federal funding, changing population size, aging infrastructure, etc. First, the way a school is set up instantly lends itself to becoming office space, especially for municipal buildings. You may have a gym, library or cafeteria you don't need, but these usually can be still useful as community centers and the like. The space is still big, but smaller than a hospital, and there's no creepy associations with it to scare of residents or buyers. Even if it stays abandoned, people are unlikely to make up stories about ghosts or monsters living in a school building, so it's more likely to fade into obscurity, rather than become a point of interest.",
"In a rural community about 20 minutes from me, there is a massive abandoned psych hospital campus. Super old, cool, and creepy. A lot of old equipment was just left in there as is; definitely could be used as a movie set.\n\nIt was abandoned due to lack of funding. \nThey actually couldn't afford to transfer a lot of patients and just let most of them walk out. Many people around here actually attribute the high level of mental illness and poverty in the area to this."
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2irco4 | why isnt there a synthetic oil that we could use instead of paying the big bucks for the natural stuff? i understand that there may be a synthetic oil out there..but why aren't we using it 100% of the time? | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/2irco4/eli5why_isnt_there_a_synthetic_oil_that_we_could/ | {
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"Well there is. That is to say, we know how to make kinds of synthetic oil.\n\nThe problem is, there's none of it lying around. And making it costs energy. Wich is exactly what we want to get from all that oil. There's a ton of energy in oil in an easy to transport shape.\n\nSo, you'd have to make the artificial oil, where'd you get the energy to make it with?\n\nIt's more efficient to use that oil that's just lying around underground.",
"Oil is energy from the sun that was trapped over a period of thousands of years, thousands of years ago. To make synthetic oil requires just as much energy, except you have to supply it yourself, from nuclear or solar.\n\n",
"Synthetic and fully synthetic oil is 3 to 6 times the price of mineral oil. (in the UK) \n\nAt least at retail and regarding car engines. \n\nIt's not organic tomatoes were talking here. \n\nEdit: Wow. I think a price differential is needed. "
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3cuwtt | are regular people allowed to sue the government? | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/3cuwtt/eli5_are_regular_people_allowed_to_sue_the/ | {
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"Yes, as long as there has been a breach of either statutory law, common law, or there is growing public need for common law to be formed. Then a civil court will hear the case. Since the government is an entity and not an individual, it is not heard under the criminal court. Unless it is an individual from the government. This is because the government is not a citizen, and the criminal courts govern citizens misdemeanours. Let me also point out that it is usually not the government as a whole but rather an office of the government or branch. And if it is a branch, sometimes it can be against an individual from that branch, but still be against the branch of government as a whole.\n\nLet me give an example. Under the laws in Europe, it is illegal to discriminate based on race. Lets say Hannah believes her application to the Police force was denied based on her ethnicity. She could then take this to the civil courts. Where they would collate the evidence, and then decide an outcome.\n\nIt turns out that the officers in charge sent emails expressing their displeasure with hiring someone of a different ethnicity. This would then be used as evidence. If found guilty, the court would either call a settlement to be made, whereby Hannah is compensated for her losses, and the breaching of her rights, among with other clauses to punish the body, or prevent it happening again.\n\nLook at say Schenck v. United States where a law punishing wartime dissent was forced to be overturned because a citizen felt it violated his first amendment rights."
]
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2s2t0h | how do apps like google maps or waze determine traffic speeds on small side streets? | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/2s2t0h/eli5how_do_apps_like_google_maps_or_waze/ | {
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"Same way they do on major highways. By crowdsourcing the data. Every android phone is a databpoint for Google. Every waze app user is a data point for waze. When waze started out, there wasn't even all the roads mapped. They used waze users to map the roads with incentives like pacman fruit markers.",
"\"Location Services\" \n \nGoogle Maps & Apple Maps all take anonymous crowd-sourced traffic data. They see that in one area, multiple people who have the app running (even in the background) are going slower than normal. Google has the advantage here because Google Maps is cross-platform while Apple Maps is IOS restricted. \n \nWaze let's their users report traffic data when experiencing traffic. \n \nAlso, Google has the actual speed limits for most streets, so that gives them another tool to analyze traffic."
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8koghs | why do same day memories feel more distant after a nap? | A couple weeks ago I had a dental operation in the morning. I was still feeling drugged and groggy at home so I took a nap. I woke up two hours later and it seemed like that operation was several days ago already. But the beginning of a work day doesn't feel like that at the end of a work day. | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/8koghs/eli5_why_do_same_day_memories_feel_more_distant/ | {
"a_id": [
"dz992ln"
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"text": [
"Memories that happen before bed get stored as short term memories. As soon as you go to sleep, your brain files all of those memories in that day in your long term memories which is why same say events may seem a day or more away even if it happened that same day just before you nap. "
]
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|
c3nuqs | how are a model of shoes/sneakers/... are priced the same even tho the sizes are different? | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/c3nuqs/eli5_how_are_a_model_of_shoessneakers_are_priced/ | {
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"[This article presents a breakdown of the manufacturing cost of a shoe.](_URL_1_)\n\nIt states that from the $70 dollars you pay for a pair of sneakers, $35 dollars go to the end retailer, 20$ to the brand/designer, and $15 to the factory. So the manufacturing cost is only $15. \n\nFurther in the article there is a [breakdown of those manufacturing cost](_URL_0_). With labor, profit, packaging and molds taken out of the picture, only 64% of those $15 is actual materials cost: $9.60. \n\n**Conclusion:** if you make a shoe 10% smaller, the cost of materials goes down 10%, but that's less than a dollar of the total shoe cost. \n\nPeople are willing to pay that extra dollar anyway, so there is no reason for companies to reduce their price for smaller sizes."
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"https://i0.wp.com/sneakerfactory.net/sneakers/wp-content/uploads/2015/02/Screen-Shot-2015-02-14-at-9.41.34-AM.png?resize=300%2C222&ssl=1",
"https://sneakerfactory.net/sneakers/2019/05/cost-to-make-a-sneaker/"
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||
3c7gs1 | why did bob dylan go electric? | I guess I don't have to explain the question to much. Everybody with a basic knowledge of music (I'd say) at least knows about the fact that Bob Dylan "went electric" at the 1965 Newport Folk Festival and on his album *Bringing It All Back Home*.
However, my question is *why*. What were his motives for going electric? | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/3c7gs1/eli5_why_did_bob_dylan_go_electric/ | {
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"It was the new wave of sound at the time. Bob dylan is a very much experimental folk singer and he wanted to experiment and experience this new wave of music and thank god he did. It catapulted him to new heights and gave us great songs",
"\"According to Jonathan Taplin, a roadie at Newport (and later a road manager for the acts of Dylan's manager Albert Grossman) Dylan made a spontaneous decision on the Saturday that he would challenge the Festival by performing with a fully amplified band. Taplin said that Dylan had been irritated by what he considered condescending remarks which festival organiser Alan Lomax had made about the Paul Butterfield Blues Band, when Lomax introduced them for an earlier set at a festival workshop. Dylan's attitude, according to Taplin, was, 'Well, fuck them if they think they can keep electricity out of here, I'll do it. On a whim he said he wanted to play electric.'\"\n\n_URL_0_\n\n-----\nEDIT: I found this quote from Lomax's introduction of the Butterfield Blues Band, which really lets you know why Dylan was pissed:\n\n\"Used to be a time when a farmer would take a box, glue an axe handle to it, put some strings on it, sit down in the shade of a tree and play some blues for himself and his friends. Now we've got these guys, and they need all of this fancy hardware to play the blues. Today you've heard some of the greatest blues musicians in the world playing their simple music on simple instruments. Let's find out if these guys can play at all.\"\n\n(The band's manager confronted him backstage, and things got physical.)"
]
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1xe0gy | is there an evolutionary benefit to snoring, or is it just a side effect of sleeping that we have to deal with? | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/1xe0gy/is_there_an_evolutionary_benefit_to_snoring_or_is/ | {
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"Our bodies aren't perfect - not everything we have or do has an evolutionary benefit. Snoring just happens when our air passages are slightly blocked when we sleep."
]
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[]
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||
s2e4f | how do governments remove/retire old currency from circulation? | I understand that paper money needs to be swapped alot faster than coins do due to durability, but how do old editions of coins like pennys or notes/bills get removed from circulation? Is it banks? Businesses? Or something else entirely?
Also, how did the whole Euro (€) change over in the EU happen? Did everyone have to line up in a bank and exchange money on day 0 or was it more gradual? | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/s2e4f/eli5_how_do_governments_removeretire_old_currency/ | {
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"[Usually, it is the role of the banks](_URL_0_) to collect old notes and put new ones in circulation (when you get bank notes at an ATM usually you will get recent or new notes).\n\nAbout the euro, it was per-country. In France, there was a one-and-half-month range during which vendors had to accept both Franc (the old currency) and Euro, but had to make change only in Euro. Meanwhile people had to exchange their coins or notes at their bank. For notes, they could still exchange it at the Banque de France until Feb 17th, 2012. In some countries like Spain (I believe), you still can exchange peseta bank notes against euros, whereas in France, old Franc bank notes have no more value (except for collections).",
"When New Zealand switched from paper notes to plastic notes, there was a switching period (can't remember how long it was, maybe a year), where both plastic and paper notes were legal tender. When the old paper notes got to the bank, they would be removed from circulation. \n\nIn practice, as a consumer as soon as the plastic notes came in you never saw the paper notes again (because ATMs only spat out new notes, shops only gave new notes as change). I'm not sure how long retailers were still receiving paper notes. ",
"The system in Slovakia was that of 1st Jan 2009 the official currency was Euro. We could still use the old Koruna for 16 days parallel with Euro. After 16th Jan the Koruna was no longer valid but you could exchange your old currency in any bank for free for the next year or so and after that the national bank's offices are going to exchange notes indefinitely. They stopped exchanging coins last year.\n\nThe exchange was very fast and smooth here preceded with huge information campaign but I heard of cases where such changes took more than half a year. "
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3qs9rm | why was the company alphabet, inc. founded as the parent of google and affiliates earlier this month? | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/3qs9rm/eli5_why_was_the_company_alphabet_inc_founded_as/ | {
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"This has been asked many, many times. Please use the Search function. \n\nTL;DR: It offers more flexibility. ",
"To give the parent company a way of getting involved in risky projects without connecting those projects to the google name.\n\nBasically, with the sort of company they are, they like trying to develop new technologies. If those technologies are a hit, great, more money for them. But if those new endavours are a failure, those failures might start reflecting on the brand 'Google' and that is not what you want. \n\nNot every new project can be a hit like Google Fiber or a Google maps. You get your Google Wave and Google videos as well. And if those failures start becoming more numerous, people might start losing trust in the brand. Now with Alphabet, they can try out these oddball little projects, and if it fails, it is not connected so visibly to Google, so the damage to that brand is minimal, if not non-existent. "
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||
e1rrpk | how does consuming alcohol destroy short term memory and turn you into a "different" and aggressive person? | I'm searching for a medical reason or something to do with biochemistry. | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/e1rrpk/eli5_how_does_consuming_alcohol_destroy_short/ | {
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"As someone who has very little short term memory and is an aggressive person, I too am interested in this.",
"As far as short term memory, alcohol shuts down the hippocampus which is responsible for creating new memories. At a certain alcohol level, your brain just stops making new memories."
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aosasf | how does adding more video memory to your integrated graphics work ? | I know pretty muck f*ck-all in terms of computer-y stuff, and after doing some research i found that it was possible to "convert" RAM into dedicated video memory by going through the bios and changing stuff. I'd like to know if that's even really a thing, and how it works, thanks ! | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/aosasf/eli5_how_does_adding_more_video_memory_to_your/ | {
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"Integrated graphics chips take some of your shared system memory and use it for graphics. So, if you have 8 gigabytes total of system memory and dedicate 1GB of it for graphics then the rest of the system is left with 7GB to use.\n\nOn most computer it's possible to change how much memory is dedicated to graphics. The way you go about this is different depending on the computer.\n\nBut, for the most part, the piece holding back your graphics from being faster isn't how much memory is dedicated. Integrated graphics are just slow and there's not much you can do to fix that."
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3mbfo8 | what happens to your sweat/pores when you wear antiperspirant? | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/3mbfo8/eli5_what_happens_to_your_sweatpores_when_you/ | {
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"text": [
"The aluminium in the antiperspirant mixes with you sweat to make a gel like plug which blocks your pores. The more pores that are plugged, the less you will sweat."
]
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[]
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||
4cklal | the russian military's current capabilities | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/4cklal/eli5_the_russian_militarys_current_capabilities/ | {
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"In terms of what? They are (arguably) the second most powerful nation on earth. WAY behind the US of course but still significantly powerful. \n\nThe real trouble is that they are fully geared up to fight wars of 40 years ago.. They have lots of tanks, aircraft and ships but not much by way of stealth abilities (more than other nations, but nothing like the US).\n\nIf you want a more detailed list, check out this website _URL_0_\n\nBut none of that includes nuclear abilities. Russia has missiles that can hit any place on the globe. Russia has subs that carry nuclear ICBMs and can be launched from anywhere on the globe. Once a nation gets to that point, it really does not matter what their other military abilities are. They have the power to destroy the world if they want, so we don't engage in open warfare with them. ",
"They have some of the best 4th generation fighters in use by any country, easily the equivalent of the F15, F16, or F/A 18 variants. They just don't have as many. They are working an equivalent 5th generation fighter to the F22 Raptor. \n\nTheir T14 MBT rolling off the assembly lines now will be the most advanced armor on the planet, a capable of fragging ANY OTHER nations MBT in one shot. The M1 Abrams can do the same back, but the era of U.S. armor superiority is over. \n\nTheir naval capabilities are limited. They have a respectable, though aging, submarine fleet. But they have a smaller surface fleet than you would expect for a nation that size, but they aren't interested that much in projecting force outside of their region like the U.S. \n\nTheir biggest deficit is their armed forces. They have a respectable number of Spetnaz special forces (around 10,000), but the entire rest of their troops are underpaid, low trained soldiers with average equipment. \n\nOf course, as the other person already commented, they have at their disposal a massive arsenal of nuclear weapons.",
"Keep in mind that the biggest difference isn't between the equipment, it's the numbers and how it's used. Look at their Air Force for instance. Do they have excellent 4th generation fighters? Absolutely. Do they have the tanker support to keep them airborne and increase their range? Do they have the strategic airlift capabilities to transport large numbers of troops and equipment over long distances quickly? Do they have the airborne command and control aircraft who can detect enemies far away and send fighters to intercept them? Do they have a robust intelligence/surveillance/reconnaissance presence to give troops an eye in the sky and target strategic areas? There's so much more to war planning than \"Our fighters are good\".",
"The Russian military suffered immensely during the fallout of the dissolution of the USSR and was seen by many US Army officers as a paper tiger during the 1980's and especially after Desert Storm. \n\nThe lone Russian aircraft carrier 'Kuznetsov' was to be the flagship of a planned class of four carriers. Only one other had it's hull completed, and was bought by a Chinese multimillionaire who [donated it] (_URL_6_) to the PLAN. The largest warships currently on the open sea are the 'Kirov' class battlecruisers, of which out of 5 planned 4 were completed and 2 remain commissioned. [Dmitry Gorenburg] (_URL_15_) , a Soviet/Russian military expert at Harvard University, has a [detailed appraisal] (_URL_12_) of Russian naval force [projections] (_URL_3_) up until 2030, including his own estimation of which projects are likely to be fulfilled according to the Russian defense ministry's budget and history. He also has write ups of Russian [operations] (_URL_8_) and [acquisition] (_URL_7_) programs by the [Army] (_URL_2_) , [Air Forces] (_URL_16_) , and Missile Forces. The Russian Navy's submarine fleet is large and powerful and likely to remain that way as a priority force. Compared to the USN it possesses more SSN vessels and less SSBNs. \n\nThe Air Force used to be the largest and most powerful in the world (that was a long time ago) but today is over ten thousand less combat aircraft weaker than the US military. The USAF's F-16 fleet alone is larger than the Russian Air Force. However [IMO] (_URL_0_) it is adequately equipped to defend Russian airspace effectively and support offensive operations in any direction for a limited time for reasons of basing and command and control. \n\nThe Russian ground forces are probably the strongest ground arm of any military in the world in terms of combat power. They have more men under arms than the US with equipment superior to the PLA. \n\nThe T-14 Armata is the next generation of MBT, and the T-90 is already the world's best IMO. It has never seen combat with a Russian crew as far as I know, but recently has been shown to [defeat TOW munitions] (_URL_1_) , in spite of an inactivated/malfunctioning trophy system, with no damage. \n\nAll Russian APCs (BTR series) and IFVs (BMP/BMD series) are equipped to engage both soft and hard targets, the BMD also air transportable and paradroppable while carrying paratroopers, while being highly mobile (50kmph < )on rough terrain. \n\nThe next generation of Russian small arm, the AK-12, puts 9,000 rounds through without a malfunction according to a write up by the 2016 issue of the magazine AK-47 & Soviet weapons, the [American M4] (_URL_9_) and [German G36] (_URL_17_) amount to a fraction of that, so regardless of accuracy or range consideration it is a very promising weapon. \n\nIt had its baptism of fire in the 90s in [Chechnya] (_URL_4_) , which turned [disastrously (NSFW)] (_URL_10_) against Russia and they were defeated in 1996. A second Chechen war in 1999 saw Russian victory in 2000 with an ongoing insurgency. In 2014 Russian operators rapidly [assumed the apparatus] (_URL_13_) of state in the Crimea and took over bloodlessly, and even if the western defense community wasn't **still** *reeling* from [this] (_URL_5_) , the RAND corporation [recently predicted] (_URL_11_) a Russian invasion of Latvia and Estonia would see them victorious [in three days] (_URL_14_) and that local American troops would not be able to successfully retreat. \n\nEdit: Added links as I originally typed this up on mobile. Formatting and grammar. Apologies in advance if a five year old doesn't want to do quite this much reading. \n\nEdit 2: Kirov Battlecruisers are not bigger than Nimitz-class carriers. \n\n"
]
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[
"http://www.globalfirepower.com/countries-listing.asp"
],
[],
[],
[
"http://warisboring.com/articles/stopping-china-would-take-23-of-u-s-air-power/",
"http://warisboring.com/articles/what-a-t-90-tank-looks-like-after-being-hit-with-a-tow-missile/",
"https://russiamil.wordpress.com/2015/07/15/armata-russias-future-main-battle-tank/",
"https://russiamil.wordpress.com/2015/01/14/russian-naval-capabilities-and-procurement-plans/",
"https://www.reddit.com/r/MilitaryStories/comments/2bj5rw/a_bmp1_gunners_retelling_of_his_experience_in/",
"http://warontherocks.com/2016/03/russian-hybrid-warfare-and-other-dark-arts/",
"http://foreignpolicy.com/2015/02/03/the-long-strange-trip-of-chinas-first-aircraft-carrier-liaoning/",
"https://russiamil.wordpress.com/2015/01/27/russian-air-force-capabilities-and-procurement-plans/",
"https://russiamil.wordpress.com/2015/11/13/russias-syria-operation-reveals-significant-improvement-in-military-capability/",
"http://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2015/01/gun-trouble/383508/",
"https://www.reddit.com/r/watchpeopledie/comments/1dv818/execution_of_6_russian_soldiers_in_chechnyaxpost/",
"http://www.rand.org/pubs/research_reports/RR1253.html",
"https://russiamil.wordpress.com/2015/02/02/no-the-russian-navy-isnt-going-to-collapse/",
"https://medium.com/the-bridge/crimea-russia-is-harvesting-the-seeds-sown-in-the-1990s-54892d22ccbb#.4hagfr7vw",
"http://foreignpolicy.com/2016/02/03/if-russia-started-a-war-in-the-baltics-nato-would-lose-quickly/",
"https://russiamil.wordpress.com/author/gorenbur/",
"https://russiamil.wordpress.com/2015/11/05/russian-stealth-fighter-will-enhance-air-force-capabilities/",
"https://medium.com/war-is-boring/german-soldiers-dont-trust-their-battle-rifle-e1070a9a67dc#.abefmj3um"
]
] |
||
2dllbo | what would happen if a toilet was flushed at the equator? | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/2dllbo/eli5_what_would_happen_if_a_toilet_was_flushed_at/ | {
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"The jets in the bowl direct the rotation. It has little to do with the corealis effect"
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56r5i2 | the carried interest tax loophole | I struggle to understand things related to finances and investments. I'm interested to know, objectively, what is the carried interest tax loophole? How does it work and why do some people consider it bad and some people are okay with it? Google answers were too confusing for me. | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/56r5i2/eli5_the_carried_interest_tax_loophole/ | {
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"Carried interest is payments made to a manager of an investment fund, generally as a percentage of the profits of that fund. The tax rules in the US treat those payments as capital gains rather than regular income, which means they're taxed at a lower rate. The maximum tax rate for long-term capital gains is 20%, as opposed to 39.6% for regular income, so by being paid in the form of carried interest instead of a salary or bonus, fund managers are able to avoid a significant amount of tax."
]
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3mbloj | why are western nations criticised if they don't take in refugees, but others aren't? | In light of the refugee crisis in Europe, I'm wondering why it's expected that Europe should take in migrants, but other wealthy countries seem exempt from criticism, specifically countries like South Korea and Japan, and to a lesser extent China.
I'm not against immigration, particularly since I come from a country where emigration has been a feature for centuries, but when these kinds of crises occur, it seems 'the West' are the ones that are expected to open their borders while similarly rich countries are exempt. If a European country or the US/Canada had the same immigration and naturalisation policies as say Japan, they'd be widely criticised by the UN and others as racist and xenophobic. | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/3mbloj/eli5_why_are_western_nations_criticised_if_they/ | {
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"I can think of two obvious reasons:\n\n1. we (Europe) are practically right next door to where the refugees are coming from. The refugees are trying to get to Europe and we have to deal with that. They're not trying to get to Japan.\n2. People criticize their own countries first and foremost. As a citizen of a European country, I have no personal stake in whether or not China takes in any refugees, but I care about whether or not *my* country does it.",
"1. The migrants aren't traveling to Japan, they're coming to Europe.\n\n2. Western nations (particularly England France and the US) have played important roles in destablizing of most of the migrants homelands",
"In addition to the other comments, countries like China have a terrible track record on human rights and so no one is surprised when they don't step up to the plate to help out at a humanitarian crisis.",
"Why aren't other middle east countries taking more in? ",
"Have you been to r/japan? People are certainly criticizing Japan for not taking in refugees.",
"I think it's because most \"western\" countries have more/better human rights and enforce them more strictly. Also we allow (the U.S) people to get jobs and go to school as they wish. Also i think there is more demand for people wanting to go to the U.S or UK. ",
"If western countries don't let refugees in they are being hypocritical. Whereas for a country without a progressive stance on human rights its just another day.\n\nStories of hypocrisy tend to have legs in the media as we all like to point fingers and congratulate ourselves on our superiority.\n\nThe fact that a country like Saudi Arabia, which beheads, crucifies, stones etc. people for things that are fantasy, like witchcraft, makes it unsurprising that they turn a blind eye to people who are merely fleeing other people who are beheading, crucifying, stoning etc. people for similar imaginary offences. Its also totally unsurprising to any observer which makes it a news story of little interest.",
"A lot of it has to do with geography. It's much easier to get into Europe from Syria than it is to trek to China or Japan. Plus, the more wealthy Asian countries tend to already have their own overpopulation issues with citizens, so it makes sense that they would say no to inviting noncitizen refugees in. At any rate, the refugees don't want to go to Japan or China. They spend their lives hearing about how great places like the UK are, so naturally they will make larger sacrifices to try to get there instead."
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3i33q6 | why do mobile phones, unlike a laptop, still operate smoothly despite not being shutdown for days/weeks? | I know if I leave my MacBook running all day long for about 2 days applications will start opening slower, more freezes, etc. But my phone hasn't been shutdown for days (maybe even a week now) but still runs fine. | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/3i33q6/eli5_why_do_mobile_phones_unlike_a_laptop_still/ | {
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"Nothing in theory means your laptop or other generic computing device need to be restarted. In practice it tends to be bad programming causing things like memory leaks or issues that accumulate over time.\n\nPlenty of servers and datacentre computers measure their uptime in years. ",
"Maybe the problem is with your laptop... I rarely reboot my laptop/work computer and I barely see any difference.",
"your laptop has a problem. you probably don't have enough ram and it is swapping onto hard disc.",
"Your laptop starts running slowly because over time, its running more and more programs that aren't necessarily being completely closed. Most mobile phone operating systems are designed to close programs as needed to free up RAM to prevent this problem.",
"The reason the phone is more reliable is because most apps run in very restricted boxes. Mobile apps have much more limited design patterns, many of these designs (how they interact with you, and with components of the system) are to specifically increase reliable and allow the operating system to control them more directly (the apps must recover nicely from force shutdown for example). \n\nSo in general apps are forced to behave more reliably. In addition to most developers wanting to support 90%+ of consumers, which a good portion of that have phones that are 3+ years old or very budget models, so if you have one newer high end phone many of the apps being run are like running software designed for windows xp on a modern PC.\n\nOn the laptop a program can use as much ram as it wants, in many different possible ways (some of those ways more prone to errors than others) and as much cpu as it wants. ",
"My PC most recently had uptime of 264 days. I only had to restart because my remote desktop app made it blue screen.\n\nThere is something you have done wrong with your computer if you have to restart it every two weeks."
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1pd6qh | how retirement works and how long term savings plans work. | How does 401K, social security work, do they work together? What about other long term investments like an IRA, how do those work and are there others? What dictates when we can retire and what kind of return can we expect from these programs?
And unless this starts a whole new basket of turtles, how does Medicaid and Medicare fit in with retirement? Thanks! | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/1pd6qh/eli5_how_retirement_works_and_how_long_term/ | {
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"You have a number of different questions here. I will do my best to answer them all.\n\n1) 401k - A 401k is a program that the most larger companies operate. Under this deal the employee (you) puts in some amount of money from their pay (salary, wages etc.) into an investment account and the company puts in a matching amount (amount varies from company to company but its usually pretty good). This money is effectively \"extra\" pay but you cannot access it until you turn 55 (I think? it might be 60). This money is invested by the company (who hire people for this purpose) and typically those investments mean that you get a lot more than was put in. Your 401k is YOURS so even if you leave the 401k will follow you. Most take their 401ks (if they have worked for multiple companies) and collapse them over time into a single larger investment account.\n\n2) Social Security - Nice and simple actually, the government sends you a check each month. All citizens of the US with a social security number get this once they turn 65.\n\n3) An IRA/Others - There are many kinds of investment accounts. An IRA is just one of the most common. Basically IRAs are accounts that pay a decent interest rate every year. The amount that you can put into them is capped for each year, but if you wait until after you turn 55(? again sorry the ages are not coming to me) the money can comes out TAX FREE, which is the big appeal. There are easily dozens of other types of accounts but they all do the same thing. You put in money, you get money out at a later date.\n\n4) When can I retire - Official retirement age in the US is 65, but those who are wealthy enough can basically retire whenever they want. Retirement just means you stop working. So if you making millions of dollars are year from investments and savings you could retire at 20 if you like.\n\n5) Medicaid/Medicare - These are separate from the other forms of retirement. I'm not as familiar with them but basically if you qualify for the program then they will help you pay for medical bills and what not.\n\nHope that helps, sorry for some of the gaps in my knowledge."
]
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4cj5i7 | what causes older computers to die? | When an old computer dies, what about it makes it unusable? Assuming it's not an obvious hardware problem (platter drive mechanical failure, power supply voltage drop, etc.) what changes that makes it fail to boot or be able to boot but run slow enough to be unusable? | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/4cj5i7/eli5_what_causes_older_computers_to_die/ | {
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"This has been asked before; if you'd like a more complete discussion, please use the search function.\n\nThe bottom line, though, is that computers have many, many components, each and every one of which can fail. It can be a major component like the power supply, the CPU, RAM, anything. It can be the solder. It can be wiring. It can be due to age, due to components that are not designed to last very long, due to materials that (at the time) we didn't know wouldn't last. \n\nThere are literally hundreds of reasons why an old machine can fail. ",
"One of the most common failures in a PC is the capacitors.\n\nElectrolytic capacitors are \"filled\" with a product that allows them to function, however long periods on non-use, freak reverse current moments, long periods of use, and basically farting sideways while not speaking the correct phrase in their presence can lead to them failing.\n\nGiven that these act as filters in many places in a PC, and fundamentally supply electrical current to the PC, as well as being critical to almost every sub component in a system, they are often the weakest link.\n\nJust to make it more fun - there is a history of them failing catastrophically, and they are often in close proximity with others - so cascading catastrophic failure (ie fire in a tin box) can occur.\n"
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13rcex | how does slipstream work? | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/13rcex/eli5_how_does_slipstream_work/ | {
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"If by slipstream, you mean cars, I can explain. \n\nWhen a car (or any other moving object) pushes through air out of the way, it leaves a space behind it where air hasn't come back yet. This can be demonstrated in a pool by pushing your hand under the water, then moving it to the side fast enough. If it is done correctly, you will carry air bubbles behind your hand.\n\nSo, in the area where that car pushed air away has a low pressure zone, or in other words, less air. Air is a major factor in how fast a car can go, because air makes friction on the car surface, making the car slow down. \n\nThe car behind the car that has already pushed air out of the way now has less air to travel through, so it can accelerate faster and get better fuel economy (barely) because it has less force holding the car back."
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kyzd6 | the sensation of time passing more quickly as you grow older. | Whatever it is, it scares the ever living shit out of me. | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/kyzd6/eli5_the_sensation_of_time_passing_more_quickly/ | {
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"The longer you live, each day is taking up a smaller and smaller percentage of your life, which makes it feel shorter, and overall makes life pass pretty quickly.",
"Since you can't remember much of your past life, only the really important parts and stuff that stands out, you tend to only remember a few years worth of content. So if you have 5 years worth of memories after 50 years, it can feel like those 50 years went just by as quickly as you expect the next 5 years to take.",
"I think I'm with the OP here. None of these answers here actually seem to legitimately give a cause for this to happen.",
"The longer you live, each day is taking up a smaller and smaller percentage of your life, which makes it feel shorter, and overall makes life pass pretty quickly.",
"Since you can't remember much of your past life, only the really important parts and stuff that stands out, you tend to only remember a few years worth of content. So if you have 5 years worth of memories after 50 years, it can feel like those 50 years went just by as quickly as you expect the next 5 years to take.",
"I think I'm with the OP here. None of these answers here actually seem to legitimately give a cause for this to happen."
]
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1jga59 | how does home schooling work? is there a specific curriculum you must follow? also, do you have to report the child's progress to anyone? | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/1jga59/eli5how_does_home_schooling_work_is_there_a/ | {
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"depends on the state",
"To expand, In the US, education is a locally controlled matter. States vary widely. Some states mandate curriculums, progress tests, and review by a professional from the county board of education.\n\nIn Montana (where we home schooled), it is the opposite extreme. The only mandated requirements are that you notify the county you are homeschooling and that your kids get their shots. You could literally park your kid in front of the TV 8 hours a day and be in compliance. ",
"Sweet Jesus I wish there were some reporting done! I went to an all girl's boarding school that used a homeschooling program (Christian) called PACE- Packets of Accelerated Christian Education. I finished all 4 years of high school in 2 1/2 years and started college at 16 because of this. I wish I could tell you that the information in those packets was worth something, but it wasn't. 12 packets equaled 1 credit. Each packet was about 30 pages jam packed with Bible verses and how each thing we learned about was correlated with one. And why bother with Avagadros number when you can learn a verse about obedience to men! At any rate, I somehow managed to graduate college with a biology degree- many people I went to school with did not. \n\nMy boyfriend is an eye doctor and he tells me all the time about \"home schooled\" children who don't know the big E because they don't know their alphabet at 8 years old. The state of Florida is the worst place to be a child under a home schooled regimen. \n\nThat being said, the requirements for anything education related in Florida is substandard. 2.5GPA in order to be a certified educator in Florida. ",
"I live in Florida and the answers are no and yes....they need to be evaluated at the end of the year and that evaluation submitted to the county school district....my daughter has done virtual school and school groups...now she has tutors for math, second language and music but otherwise basically follows a very open curriculum of study...the internet and books possess all the information, the rest is just a passion for learning and some discipline."
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6dzke3 | how does the military "fight for our freedom"? | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/6dzke3/eli5_how_does_the_military_fight_for_our_freedom/ | {
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"text": [
"Marketing.\n\nIf we said that it's fighting for the commercial, economical and political interests of our country, nobody would support it.\n\n",
"Historically it made more sense. In many places in the world it still makes more sense. Today in most of the developed world the phrase doesn't make much sense in the traditional meaning. But if you would simply remove the entire military, then yeah, bad stuff could happen pretty quickly.",
"1) They fight any invasion of our territory should it happen. Has not happened since WWII but that does not mean it cannot. \n\n2) They fight all current enemies and any potential enemies that we may have abroad. \n\n3) They protect our trade routes and thus defend our access to resources. ",
"The freedoms people usually think of are different than the ones the military protects.\n\nThe military allows citizens of the nation to trade and travel internationally, to purchase cheap goods, and generally enjoy all the benefits of a dominant position in foreign policy.\n\nWhile \"the freedom to purchase cheap gas\" isn't as flashy as \"the freedom of speech\", for instance, they're both valuable freedoms worth protecting. ",
"Liberalism is the practice of: freedom of speech, freedom of the press, freedom of religion, free markets, civil rights, democratic societies, secular governments, gender equality, and international cooperation.\n\n_URL_0_\n\nLiber = 'Free'/ Liberalism = Freedom-ism\n\nYou don't 'fight' for 'freedom', by saying \"we are fighting for freedom\"; you're' fighting' for 'liberalism', as it creates open-trade, open-boarders, diplomatic processes; processes of government that help other like government get along (particularly, on policy and economics)\n\n\nThis 'liberalism' took many forms. Originally, it was the 'freedom' movement from monarch to republic; which made it 'very progressive' seeming at the time - hence, the term conflation with the people of progressive movements.\n\nWhen we say, 'fighting for freedom', this actually means, 'a conspiracy' via governments, their corporations, their alllies and inside men, working to shape the global economy via cultural processes that allow more 'open markets' and access to debt inducing foreign banks for 'development' and resource acquisition by previously 'developed nations' (and for the US, military access in outposts). This access warfare strategy is embedded into the economic virtues of philosophical 'globalism'.\n\n\nThis conflation with 'freedom' (as liberalism) evolved out of the anglo-Afrikaans environment of post-colonial Africa being re-colonized by 'revolutionary coup' and 'the perceptual fall of the British empire' in Cecil Rhodes (1880-1830). \n\nWorld War happens again. Much like the British banks funded the October revolution, you see wall street funding a war between soviets and Nazis, while also funding Nazi oil ambitions and the British navy.\n\n Following is a Wall Street and US industry/policy collaboration (1930-present) to pick up the 'liberal' torch of the Anglo-establishment dream - had it been dropped during the losses of ww2 by Briton. The US then generates it's own image of 'liberalism abroad', calling it 'Wilsonian' and offering foreign military and economy intervention. This generates a foreign policy mechanism of continuous economic warfare; where corporations, which generate all the available resources and logical vectors for a future war, are the actual 'constant war' that wages between nations IN OTHER FOREIGN NATIONS, on behalf of their bottom line with few 'shots fired'. The US realized it could conquer the world, much like the Portuguese, dutch, British before them [in commanding Europe for short times, those small nations, did so in temporary command of 'open'-foreign trade markets] = **That industry conquers the world and militarism 'defends' the conquest/contested territories.**\n\n- Imperialist Europe failed to realize, you don't occupy a nation as a territory of empire, you drain it of its resources and generative wealth, without losses of investment in infrastructure that doesn't generate 'resource acquisition' via debt by contracts. \n\nIn such, you have the break down of old colonial 'liberalism', shaped into an 'Anglo-centric' liberalism antebellum ww1, and an 'Anglo-American establishment' post ww2. We then conceptualize these 'Rhodesian scholars' as 'neo-cons' for 'traditionalists' in the US, 'Neo-Liberals' for pseudo-progressives of the democratic party who want to invade places, and 'Ordoliberalism' for the European Union.\n\n",
"As someone in the intelligence community in the navy, I could say if we weren't actively protecting our country all the time, it's likely there would be a lot more terrorist attacks, and potentially other countries trying to take over, and likely very successfully if the threat of our military defense/retaliation was removed."
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8vg1vb | how does every single person have unique dna? how are there so many variants? | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/8vg1vb/eli5_how_does_every_single_person_have_unique_dna/ | {
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"Humans have over 19,000 separate genes, many of which may vary freely from one person to another. So the number of possible combinations is way *way* more than the number of people who have ever lived."
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31b2q9 | how did coming out of the closet become assosiated with the homosexual movement? | Just wondering how the term came to be. | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/31b2q9/eli5_how_did_coming_out_of_the_closet_become/ | {
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"Pretty sure it's an evolution of the idea of having \"Skeletons in your closet\". If you are secretly gay, that's a big skeleton in your closet, which becomes \"you are a closeted gay\", which then means you come out \"of the closet\"."
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68f60e | why can the potus repeatedly call media outlets, such as cnn and msnbc, 'fake' without getting sued for slander? | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/68f60e/eli5why_can_the_potus_repeatedly_call_media/ | {
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"It is really hard to sue the president for anything. The sense behind this law is so his political enemies can't just tie him down with lawsuits. For serious things the president can be impeached but that is a major political event. The system assumed presidents would be sensible adults. This may have been misguided. ",
"It's not worth either parties time to go thru a lawsuit. As mentioned it's difficult to sue the president for anything. Yes technically Trump is probably slandering them but I think then u can also say they are slandering Trump in return with repeated negative remarks and cherry picking of facts and alot of other things the biased media does. I think in a sick twisted way Trump and the media are happy with the constant childlike bickering between them. The media don't care about being slandered. They care about viewer ratings and $$$",
"To be fair, a lot of news outlet are 'fake' already, maybe not in the sense they're purposely misleading (although some of them are) but more so in the sense they are biased in the news they report and often omit or glance over news that doesn't fit in with thier image or political views. \n\nIt really takes an intelligent person these days to uncover their own truths. \n\nEdit:\n\nA few sources from a few varieties, as I'm sure I'll get some down voters. \n\n_URL_2_\n\n_URL_0_\n\n_URL_1_",
"If you are a public figure or you are involved in a matter of public concern -- and media outlets are -- then there are some rules that apply to a suit for defamation no matter where in the country you are:\n\n1. You have to prove a high standard of intent. This standard is misleadingly called \"actual malice.\" What it means is: you need to prove that the person knew the statement was false, or that the person was reckless with regard to its falsity -- i.e., there was reason to know the statement was false, and the person didn't care whether it was false or not. \n\n2. You need to prove that the statement would be taken as a factual statement, not a statement of opinion. You can't defame someone with a pure opinion or an interpretation of true facts. To be actionable, the statement must imply something about a matter that is provable true or false. And the statement has to be such that a reasonable person would listen to the statement and think a specific false assertion was being made. \n\n3. You need to prove that you, specifically, were defamed. A person cannot sue for defamation of a group. Only individuals can be defamed. So, saying that a particular news organization lied is something that might be actionable, but saying \"the media lies\" is not actionable unless you can tell that some individual news organization is meant by that statement.\n\n4. You need to prove damages in a suit for defamation. That means you need to show how the statement hurt you, and how that harm is reducible to money. For a news organization that usually means showing lost profits. As you can imagine, it would be very hard to prove that one of Trump's statements was the direct cause of any lost profits for a news organization today.\n\nOthers have mentioned the difficulty in suing the President, but that isn't likely the reason. The president can be sued personally. The difficulty is mainly in the discovery process, which is likely to be held up by the President's schedule. But a defamation suit does not necessarily require much discovery from the defendant. It is the public statement that forms the crux of the suit.\n\nMore likely, there simply is no point to suing. You would have a hard time establishing liability and a harder time establishing damages. You would waste a lot of money and time for nothing. A news organization that did that would also hurt its own reputation with the public.\n\n",
"the boundries of what is considered slander are very vague so its hard to win a case. slander is basically lying to ruin someone's credibility or rep. they way its designed, its pretty easy to argue against slander. if there is enough evidence that those news sources have created fake news, he's in the clear. a good example of actual slander was when KILLER KEEEEEMSTAAAR said pyrocynical was with a 15 year old girl... then a 14 year old girl... then a 13 year old girl... it was very clearly false and he was obviously trying to ruin pyro's reputation.",
"It's not slander when there is truth to the statement. There have been times when CNN, MSNBC, and FOX have jumped the gun and gotten things wrong. Those examples could be used in court and the case would go out the window. ",
"Because it's not real news. It's commentary. There are no real news organizations anymore. They are all tied up with special interest and money. Journalists have done a terrible job at enforcing their ethics. ",
"Because they consistently lie and distort reality while only presenting stories that benefit a narrative they personally endorse. ",
"Because he's right and they know it too. The better question is why isn't the media being sued for slander.",
"Because they are and everyone who is paying any attention knows it. \n\nThe Fourth Estate is dead in this nation. The news networks operate as advertising wings of the respective parties. ",
"Because suing the president means your news company is done. Remember, these news companies are part of conglomerates that lobby for the government.",
"Because it's the truth; they 'create' and hype stories that are not true or are non existent. The only credible news I watch are NPR and PBS. The others incl BBC/ABC/CBC are sometimes watchable. ",
"Freedom of speech, maybe?",
"Because no news organization wants to testify as to the acuricy of their reporting under oath.",
"Because the accusations have to be blatantly falsified. Like it or not, seemingly legitimate corporations like CNN or MSNBC have actually been caught publishing highly misleading/silently editorialized content, and on occasion even outright lies.\n\nNow, of course they aren't the worst; agencies like RT are even worse, and Fox doesn't have a great track record either to say the least.",
"Because a lot of the times they have actually been proven to be reporting false information. ",
"Because it's true. Neither of those networks provide news. Instead, they provide their opinions on the news, which is completely different. They're fake news stations. Not because they manufacture fake stories, but because they spread propaganda under the guise of news.",
"Hyper normalization of expected actions in relation to elected officials.\n\nIt happens through culture slowly and piggy backs off of useful idiots (The majority of us, the people) who let it slide for too long in favor of making jokes about reality instead of addressing it.\n\nWe as a populace are partial to blame for not coming together as a people and conveying a cohesive message in regards to our acceptance of such behavior.\n\nThey found a way to present this stuff in fashion that is similar to a popular television Drama and so people actively tune in for it instead of pushing against it.\n\nYeah...",
"One thing to consider is that \"fake news\" is a term decidedly liberal news came out with in an orchestrated fashion. The intent was to have a tool to shut down their competition. It was vague just for that purpose, so that they're not liable for a given specific claim, it is simply a review of their over all quality. It was designed for that and was almost immediately tossed back at them, like Roadrunner making a thing blow up on Wile E Coyote.\n\n\"Fake\" can mean anything, and it does cover all bases if taken figuratively. Mainstream media have been caught ourtirght manipulating news for decades via various methods, be it creative editing(eg taking even half sentences or just a couple words out of context), running with an unverified or even outright false story(sometimes even created by them), creatively paraphrasing a statement so that it turns into a straw man fallacy(eg calling everyone a \"nazi\" or \"fascist\" for example, pure hyperbole that is more character assassination than actual coverage of events), even setting up their own \"tests\" and rigging the outcome.\n\nThat last one: 1993 _URL_0_\n\n > NBC Admits It Rigged Crash, Settles GM Suit\n\nMost commercial \"News\" isn't news so much as heavily editorialized propaganda. Calling any of the organizations \"fake\" is a pretty apt description no matter what TV station it is. Journalistic integrity has given way to establishing a narrative for manipulating the public view.\n\nTruth is, it's always been that way to some extent. It's just that it's gotten so bad recently....and combined with more camera's on 24/7, it really paid off for President Trump to make an issue out of it and have it hit home.\n\nIn the 50's it may not have worked when hardly anyone watched or heard much about it without a lot of effort and there weren't but a few accessible TV networks to begin with. But in today's advanced technological state, people hear about it right when it happens almost. That has made the fake news phenomenon explode. We see which ones jump the gun, and we're so innundated with \"news\" all the time that it becomes readily apparent with exposure to multiple sources with entirely different stories, they can't all be correct...\n\nThey all do it, the tough part is figuring out which is closest to the actual truth on which story. Odds are you can find a source that is simply representing the facts, but you've got to dig for it. It's not even the same place, there is no single one source that's always good."
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"http://thefederalist.com/2017/02/06/16-fake-news-stories-reporters-have-run-since-trump-won/",
"http://www.politifact.com/punditfact/tv/fox/"
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85ljvb | why does it feel hotter when the sun is beating on me, but the temperature on the thermometer remains the same? | For example, it's 32 degrees outside right now, but very sunny. I would think that 32 degrees is 32 degrees, but it feels very warm out due to the beating of the sun. | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/85ljvb/eli5_why_does_it_feel_hotter_when_the_sun_is/ | {
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"So the sun is warming the surface of the Earth, which in turn warms the air near to it. So if you were standing in the shade, you would feel this temperature, as the air in turn warms you.\n\nBut if you are out in the sunshine, then not only is that process occurring, but the sun is also warming you the same as it warms the surface of the earth. Some of that light is being absorbed by your skin and turned into heat. \n\nIn truth, lots of things affect your perception of temperature, and it is much more complicated than simply \"it is what it is.\" This is why, for example, if you go outside in the winter, a piece of metal will feel much more cold than a piece of wood, even though both are ambient temperature. \n\nWhat you *feel* is only partially related to what the temperature actually *is.*"
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3gc7d7 | how did the kama sutra become a global phenomenon when indian culture is generally very conservative? was it a "hit" there too ? | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/3gc7d7/eli5_how_did_the_kama_sutra_become_a_global/ | {
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"I would argue you're making a philosophical mistake in equating conservatism with sexual prudence. In the West, Christianity demonized sexuality. But many other cultures regard it as a neutral, if not revered, facet of life. You must also understand that the terms \"liberal\" and \"conservative\" do not represent any specific dogma. This is the definition of conservative:\n\n1. holding to traditional attitudes and values and cautious about change or innovation, typically in relation to politics or religion.\n\nAs you can guess, context matters. What is traditional to us, is not necessarily so to others. How people express cautious attitudes differs from place to place, as do the circumstances that compel people to caution. In the US, a large segment of people have mistaken the word to basically mean \"christian\", and this is a misuse of the term. What \"conservative\" is can only be defined in relationship to one's own culture and the behaviors of his/her peers. ",
"Indian culture was not conservative until the Muslim rulers enforced their conservatism beginning in the 11th/12th century and later Brits in the 17th/18th/19th century enforced their Victorian prudishness on the populace. \n\nCarvings on temple walls from before the Muslim rules exerted their influence or in areas where their influence did not reach still show [topless women](_URL_2_), [erotic art](_URL_0_) and [more](_URL_3_). In fact in South India women remained [topless](_URL_1_) until the 19th century.\n\nNot to mention, only 10 out of the 36 Chapters in the Kamasutra pertain to sexy times. The rest are more about how to manage a marriage/relationship and how to be a righteous dude(tte).",
"If you look at Hindu art, a lot of it is very sexual, in a way that seems to embrace it as a spiritual element. There are nipples a-plenty.",
"The Kama Sutra is usually depicted in western pop culture as an illustrated book of sex positions. In reality, it's a boring read, no version Ive seen has any illustrations, and comes across as more of guide to picking up chicks in a conservative culture. It's filled mostly with philosophy and social etiquette."
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1q2wy3 | what's a bond? (finance) | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/1q2wy3/eli5_whats_a_bond_finance/ | {
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"You give me a thousand bucks now, I'll give you your thousand bucks back plus some additional money on top at the end of a set period. It is a form of debt - you're not buying equity in the company. You're not going to get huge returns if the company all of a sudden triples its stock prices. You're getting a set amount, but in exchange if the company fails they will pay you before any of the equity holders.",
"If you're referring primarily to municipal bonds, like on a state ballot measure, they're essentially \"loans\" that the county/state/etc. will take out to finance some kind of program or public works project. \n\nOf course, instead of borrowing money from a single bank they're borrowing from whatever private investors choose to purchase the bonds.\n\nFor investors, the main advantage of buying municipal bonds is that the gains, once the bond matures, are tax-free."
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8gh00p | why are there no native speakers of the latin language and why are people still learning it today? | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/8gh00p/eli5_why_are_there_no_native_speakers_of_the/ | {
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"The language evolved into other languages (the most common ones are Spanish, Portuguese, French, Romanian and Italian). The Latin that is taught these days is the literary form used in Rome, not the popular kind (Vulgar Latin, which is the precursor to the languages mentioned above). ",
"Because over a thousand years it has evolved into the romance languages (italian, spanish, and french to a lesser extent are examples). Because languages change.\n\nPeople are still learning it for 3 reasons:\n\n1. a lot of classic academia is in latin, and most of zoology still is.\n\n2. the etymology of most latin languages (and english) is mostly derived from latin. Learning latin can help you figure out works in different derivative languages.\n\n3. and most importantly: cultural inertia. They teach latin because they always taught latin. Its not a good reason but its a big one.\n\nMost places dont even teach it anymore, but historically it was mandatory for education, we are moving away from that but people are slow.\n\nEDIT: clarified that my list of romance languages was not comprehensive\n\nEDIT2: formatting",
" > Why are there no native speakers of the Latin language\n\nBecause there is no group of people teaching it to their kids as a first language. What was the Latin language evolved over time and fractured into the numerous romantic languages we have today (Spanish, Italian, French, etc.)\n\n > and why are people still learning it today?\n\nSeveral reasons:\n\n1. It was the de facto language for sciences, medicine, law, and religion, at lot of which still use words in the original Latin. While knowing the Latin meaning of the words really isn't necessary to succeed, it is interesting and can broaden ones understanding of the historical context in which those concepts reside.\n\n2. Since Latin undermines a number of prominent modern-day languages, understanding Latin can give a deeper understanding of how those languages are related.\n\n3. Learning languages is fun!",
"Having done four years of Latin at high school ('97-'01, and not a posh private one either) I feel I can comment. Latin is essentially the basic building blocks of many Western languages. Many words evolved and language rules follow basic Latin. If you can understand Latin, more often than not you can pick through (at least written) other European languages and follow bits of it. I also did French and a year's German but the Latin base means I can follow Italian, Spanish and Portuguese too. I find Dutch is a bit of a stretch but that's probably the Afrikaans influence, and the Eastern European languages are Russian based so I can't do them either.",
"In some Catholic churches, Mass is still said in Latin. In fact, the Latin Mass has seen a bit of a rise in recent years \\([source](_URL_0_)\\). ",
"Why not? Most of the stuff you'll learn is stuff that you'll never use. The act of learning is good in itself. ",
"I’ve taken four years of Latin in high school, and it’s absolutely a subject worth learning and perpetuating. The first two years are studying grammar and the language itself to learn how to use it, and then the other two are translating and studying Roman poetry, books, and other works. We’ve translated the personal reports of Julius Caesar from his military conquests of Gaul, the Metamorphoses of Ovid which is basically an origins story of the world, and Vergil’s Aeneid which tells the epic story of Aeneas from his leaving Troy after its demise to the founding of Rome. It’s absolutely fascinating and there are so many historical and cultural implications within what you read that affects the texts, so there’s always more to read or research about a certain author’s motive in writing (for example, the Aeneid constantly alludes to the questionable leadership abilities of Aeneas, Dido, and other prominent figures in the book; the argument can be made that Vergil references this so much as a critique of the contemporary emperor Augustus’s leadership). \n\nSo basically, it’s a history class built into a foreign language class. You learn all about Roman society, wars, and general history.",
"On this note, it is tragic that it is no longer standard among science and academia. It used to be so that people from all nations could communicate and work together. Newton’s Principia Mathematica is a good example.\n \nIt needs to come back. \n\nMusic is a great example of the usefullness of a universal language. All musicians can read and play each others music because of it.",
"I can only respond to your second question. Many kids are learning Latin as it will help on the vocab section on sat’s. That and it’s generally considered an easy language to learn as you don’t fully learn the language but more of the history behind it.",
"The language that a Roman would have spoken would have changed through out the years of the republic and the empire while the written language was very static. After the fall of Rome these spoken languages stayed very similar to each other but as time went communication between these areas stoped and the spoken languages drifted farther apart creating the modern Romance languages today. \n\nLatin basically evolved in the spoken form but stayed static in its written form and this led to different dialects throughout the empire and once the central authority collapsed, these people stoped communication with other parts of the empire and the languages began to drift further away from each other. \n\n",
"A point I havent seen anyone else make is that because it isn't a spoken language the meanings of words don't shift, the shift in meaning is called semantic change and it describes how words like Gay which used to mean lighthearted and awful which used to mean inspiring wonder have different meanings nowadays. Latin is used because it doesn't experience semantic change, and this is especially useful for science which needs consistency. \n\nEdit: Erm.... thanks for the karma lol, I literally know no Latin other than scientific names for species / in chemistry and biology etc I just knew this was one of the main reasons!",
"hmm. Because it is extremely fun to learn it?",
"Bonus Info: You can use the Latin scientific name for anything and it sounds exactly like a spell from the Harry Potter Universe!",
"Most reasons have been stated above, but an important one that most people seem to forget is that it teaches you to take a deeper look and approach problems with logic. You really have to puzzle when translating a sentence.\n\nSource: I've been studying Latin for 6 years now (in high school)",
"**The short answer is:**\n\nThanks to the widespread influence of the Roman Empire and, later, the Roman Catholic Church over most of Europe, Latin was for centuries regarded as the language of scholarship, science, and religion, even if people came to speak different languages in their everyday life. All the old important books were written in Latin, so educated people had to learn Latin as well. Plus, the Bible and stuff.\n\n**To expand:**\n\nThere are no native speakers because the civilization that spoke Latin natively (the Romans) fell, and the everyday spoken language evolved into different languages. So \"pure\" classical Latin was *only* used as the language of scholarship, religion, etc., a position which it held due to its prestige (Europeans thought the Romans were pretty badass) and momentum (as mentioned, the books were all written in Latin already).\n\nToday, with modern publishing and the availability of translations and the plethora of great works in various other languages, Latin is not nearly as important in our school curricula, though it was still considered an essential part of education up to like, a century or so ago, give or take (I'm not really an expert on this). Now, it's just an elective for the pretentious kids and kids who really don't want to take Spanish.\n\n**Edit:** To clarify, I personally think Latin has incredible historical and cultural significance. The last bit was mainly to explain how the average person thinks of the language today, and why society as a whole doesn't seem to regard it as as important anymore.",
"First, there is native speakers of Latin. There is very few of them, but they exist. \n\nThe most common case is \"they parents meet each others, and Latin was the only common language they had, so...\". Note that those native Latin speakers have 3 native languages (Latin + father's + mother's).\n\nIf you're asking yourselve \"how can they talk about modern stuff with a dead language like Latin?\", the answer is \"the Vatican has completed Latin with all the words needed to talk about modern technologies\".\n\nSecond, as said just before, Latin is still a language commonly used in the Catolic Church. \n\nThirdly, for French/Spanish/Italian/... speakers, and in a lesser way for english speakers, Latin is quite near to their native language, and learning Latin is like History. You learn about things that are no longer used, but it helps you understand better why things are like they are, and how they works.\n\nLastly, that's yet another way of creating an elite. For exemple, the French law forbid to make classes of \"bad students\", and classes of \"good students\", but allows to make classes of \"latin students\" and classes of \"non-latin students\". And since latin is a additional option, which gives additional hours of work, student who takes it are almost exclusively \"good students\".",
"It's a huge advantage when it comes to certain things re: pretty much only the Western European world and even not all of that. \n\nfirst of all, teachers aren't Fucking with you, you'll do better on tests. The why is sort of summed up concisely as \"you can make more betterer guesses.\" This is because you don't necessarily need to know the exact definitions of a lot of words you read to infer, using their Latin route (lol I meant root but this is a funny mistake so I'm leaving it) (if it's romantic on origin, not a guarantee), the words meaning. This is important in regards to like negatives and positives etc. \n\nThis is also great in the real world when you're like \"I am in France what the fuck does this sign say\" or \"I am in Spain but now I am in Catalonia and you know what, I can still read that sign.\" It's also super helpful when it comes to learning those languages as well. You'll start to see and expect patterns based on the Latin. Even though this isn't always correct, that skill helps with memory. but it's like, a fair bet, for example, that since you know what semper means, you could guess what siempre means. \n\nAnyway if you want to go into Romance languages it's a solid skill. It's also a great way to fuck up your vocabulary by never looking words up because you can just sort of guess their meaning so, remember that specific definitions are also really important. \n\nIf you're in a position to take some Latin, take some Latin. At worst any new language helps you understand your own more, simply through a closer examination of Language. But Latin is exceptionally helpful if you speak English (not a Romance language but we do what we want) or any of the other true Romance languages.\n\nAddition: why it isn't spoken\n\nthe European dark ages. The church kept it alive, because it was the language of the educated, but this meant that the majority of citizens (not educated due to the collapse of the Roman state and like tons of other stuff but just remember that universal basic education is a new thing, like really new) couldn't actually understand the scriptures or the sermons. Cue like several hundred years of religious warfare and eventually I believe Vatican II was like \"our bad about the Nazis and we'll stop the Latin shit\" and so one of the last groups of speakers stopped. Which is fine. People should probably be able to understand \"the word of God.\"",
"Tl;dr version:\n\n1. Because languages change. Very few living languages exist now in same form they were 1500-2000 years ago. One could argue that speakers of modern Romance languages are, in effect, native speakers of *modern* Latin.\n\n2. Because a tremendous amount of the foundation of Western literature and history written in Latin was preserved over the centuries. Also Western culture saw Latin as a good model for Indo-European grammar in general, thus supporting its persistence as a language suitable for academic study.",
"My dad was a Latin and Greek scholar (\"Classics\"), which was an odd choice for a Jewish kid from Chicago back in the 60's. Nevertheless, he persisted and worked towards his masters and then PhD. He taught Latin and Greek at Marist High School in 1971-2, a Catholic school in Chicago. He endured a lot of criticism from his family for wanting to do this (vs. other more Jewish pursuits like being a doctor, lawyer or CPA). He also got a lot of backlash from the schools he went to and where he taught - mostly for seeming like a poser. But throughout his life, he has taken such joy from being able to read, write, and teach the classics. And despite progressive dementia, he still can recite many ancient Greek poems by heart without missing a beat. I took four semesters of Latin in college, mostly to appease him (while meeting my language requirement), and one of my fond memories is of him driving down to Champaign and pulling an all-nighter with me studying for my Latin final. One of my kids took both Latin and Greek in high school, and it was such a joy watching my dad read with him and help him with school work.\n\nAnyway, not relevant to this ELI5, but seemed like as good a place as any to post.",
"Another smaller reason where Latin can be used: Latin was spoken in all Catholic masses up to as recent as 1962. My grandfather had to learn Latin growing up in catholic school. There are still Catholic Churches that speak it (one in my area) but not as common. There are still new priests learning Latin to work in these churches. ",
"Moreover, why aren't people learning it as a first language? \n\nIt's relatively popular to learn in schools, so how is there no small group of people that speaks it as their main language?",
"Learning some latin in school was really helpful to understand the etymology of words used in my native language (french). It helps \"cutting\" words in pieces to understand how they're built and then instantly understand new words because you know what each part of the word means on its own(usually scientific or nature related terms).\n\nIt is also a great tool to understand, learn and remember the proper spelling of words which, in French, can seem a bit random but is actually not such as accents on vowels. For example the reason we put a \"circumflex accent\" on some words is to replace the S from the original Latin word.\n\nHospital > Hôpital > Hospitalia (the old french went with Ospital)\nHost > Hôte > Hospes\nHotel > Hôtel > Hospes (note here that the english word didn't go with Hostel even tho we kept the ^.\n\nOther funny little language differences i noticed were between the way both english and french have a completely different word for \"star\" which is \"étoile\" in french, even tho they both come from the same roots either from sterra, or stella, or hester, which all ended up making words like stellar, stellaire, astre, astronomie, astronomy, astral.\n\nOf course that's just the tip of the iceberg but it's a great basic tool to learn other languages that are historicly linked to it in any way.\n\nIt's basically the most recent dead language related to ours. It's not only \"dead\" it's the most recent \"dead one\" that has meaning.\n\nI went a bit far to my liking but yeah, that'd be my take on it.\n\n",
"I went to a Jesuit-run (type of Catholic priest) high school and we took it for 4 years. Their argument, besides a sort of general appeal to classical education, is that it teaches a way of thinking that makes you better at languages overall, and moreso than simply learning a different language better.\n\nIn English, words basically are either singular (\"chair\") or plural (\"chairs\"). In Latin, you conjugate the word depending on its role in the sentence. So \"the chair is comfortable\" would not be spelled the same way as \"did you buy a chair?\", \"The chair leather was worn out,\" or \"get over here, Chair!\" To roughly make up ways of conjugating the word, imagine if you had to say \"the *chairus* was uncomfortable, so Bob bought a new *chairum.* Now he talks to it, and will say *'Chaire,* hold my butt!'\" You'd have to do this for every word (except prepositions).\n\nBecause words are conjugated like this, in Latin you can play a lot more with the order of words, which means that to understand Latin you need to dissect the way each word is conjugated and then understand the sentence not from the order of words but from each word's role in the sentence. The best example I can think of is a passage from one of Caesar's diaries where he is talking about \"on an island in the sea,\" but because of the liberties he could take with the order of words he said \"in on an island the sea\". It makes no sense in English, but in Latin it the words \"on an island\" are physically within the words \"in the sea,\" just like the island is physically in the sea. It's a kind of poetry or style you certainly can't do in most languages and certainly not English. To understand things like this you need to be able to think in a way that isn't really like other common languages you'd commonly learn in a classical Western education (I believe Romanian still works like this, but most languages a western European/American might learn don't).\n\nNow, you might ask if the 4 hours of Latin I took for 4 years of my life were better for me than more English, French, math, or learning another 3rd language. I honestly don't know, but there certainly are times I understand things because of Latin that I wouldn't otherwise. Besides understanding countries' mottos (e pluribus unum), the engravings on old buildings, and the occasional pretentious expression, I'm not convinced it's *better* for me than spending time on other subjects. But just like it's important for someone who doesn't plan on working with numbers or science to have a rough understanding of chemistry and math, some people do believe in Latin's value as teaching an entirely separate branch of thinking. \n\nBonus fun facts:\n\n* English *mostly* doesn't conjugate words like Latin does, but one notable exception is \"whom.\" Ever wonder where that m comes from? Most direct objects (\"I brought the chair\") in Latin end in -am, -um, etc.\n\n* \"Bob and I\" vs \"Bob and me\" depends entirely on their role in the sentence. Drop Bob and see if your sentence makes sense. If you insist everyone around you say \"she gave Bob and I a lift,\" you should maybe take some Latin lessons.\n\n* If you're wondering what it's like to translate Latin, you give the first sentence a read, and kind of get the gist of the words. If you're lucky and there's really only one combination that makes sense, you're off the hook with a cursory check: \"In the chair Bob sat.\" Fair enough, it's unlikely anything crazy is going on and the chair probably didn't sit on Bob. But sometimes a sentence is way more complex and it's not so clear: \"Mark Bob in the chair sat.\" So now you need to figure out if they're saying Mark sat in Bob's chair, or Bob sat in Mark's. One of the two names will be conjugated as the subject of the verb, while the other will be related to \"chair.\" So it'll actually be more like \"Markus Bobis in chairum sat.\" -us in our made up case means Markus did the thing, and -is means it's the *chair of Bob*. And chair*um* tells you the verb's action was done to the chair. So your thought process goes \"who did the sitting? Marc. What did he sit in? In the chair. Who's chair was it? Bob's.\" Now, of course it gets way more complicated than that, but I think that shows the process pretty well. You can imagine when you're using words that all conjugate differently (4th declension words are almost decoys that seem to follow other declensions, so if you don't recognize it you could read both \"The hand with the Bob hit.\" Because \"with hand\" is written the same way as \"the hand hit\"). Sometimes you have to ask yourself stuff like \"is this *of the rose* or is it *many roses did the thing* even if you know what every word in the sentence means?\n\nAnyway, I'm far from an expert, but at my peak I could read Caesar's diaries looking up the occasional word and scribbling in the margins. AMA if you wanna. \n\nEdit: bonus bonus fun fact: ever wonder why it's \"et tu, Brute\" when everyone knows his name is Brutus? Because Brute is the vocative case of Brutus, used for directly addressing someone. In my example where Bob is speaking to his chair (\"Chaire\"), that's what I used. ",
"The reason Latin has no native speakers is because of time.\n\nLanguages, contrary to what many people believe, are not like instructions. They are not static. There is no \"proper\" way to speak a language. \n\nThe Roman Empire was vast, and though it was well connected, it wasn't so well connected that you could easily get from one place to another. That took time and money, which most people didn't have. So over time, isolated communities in Gaul (France) spoke a dialect that more and more didn't resemble Roman Latin. Any time that a community is isolated, its language diverges from whatever it was originally. For Gaul, it became what would become French. In Hispaniola, it would become Spanish and Portuguese. \nFurthermore, once the Goths and in the case of Iberia, the Moores invaded, the languages started merging with upper Germanic ones. This, especially in France, caused a drastic change from Gaulic Latin into a more modern like French.\n\nWhy do people still learn it today? For English speakers, its because English is a bastard tongue. England has flip flopped between Roman Britons, Germanic Anglo-Saxons, to Norse-Frankish hybrids (the Normans). The Normans are especially important because Norman French had Germanic syntax from their homeland but had picked up a lot of Latin words from Frankish. Sound familiar? It should. Once the Normans conquered England in 1066, the language in England became Anglo-Norman. As time went on, the Frankish king expelled the remaining Normans from mainland France, and cut off from France, Anglo-Norman slowly changed into Early Modern English (the language of Shakespeare) and then into today's Modern English. Because of this, though English kept its Ango-Saxon grammar, it took a *lot* of vocabulary from Anglo-Norman (grammar changes slower), so learning Latin is still a very valuable tool to understanding English because English is really, really hard to learn. Furthermore, it is valuable because many major languages are descended from Latin so learning Latin makes understanding the Romance languages easier (e.g. French, Spanish)\n\nTl;Dr: When communities are separate, their languages diverge. When communities meet, through trade or conquest, their languages merge. Over time, this caused Latin to fracture into the many Romantic languages. Learning Latin is still valuable because many major languages are Romantic and thus understanding Latin makes learning them easier, and it makes English easier to understand because like 90% of our vocabulary comes from Latin and Romantic languages. ",
"Im a freshman and I’m one of nine people taking the latin class at my school. My teacher keeps a quote on the board, “Latin is a language, dead as can be, first it killed the romans, now its killing me”. But to answer your question I chose to learn it because I thought it would be nice to know derivatives of words and where the english language was derived from.",
"I took Latin in high school because I enjoyed ancient history. I ended up loving Latin and went on to major in Classical Languages at university. There is just something so special about getting to read texts that are thousands of years old that still resonate with a modern audience. \n\nAs other responses have noted, my English grammar really benefited from studying Latin! Also, parsing words gets a lot easier with Latin (and Greek). ",
"I am a Latin teacher, I teach the language *viva voce,* i.e. by speaking, through year one and two. I read, write, speak, and think in Latin, as do c. 1000\\-3000 others.\n\nThe point of learning Latin is to get at the fundamental texts of western culture. Many, even most of the ideas we take for granted today in westernized cultures found their first articulation in Latin, along with many ideas that have for better or worse been abandoned or forgotten. Less than 5 & #37; of everything written in Latin has been translated, so the only way into these books \\(and, my sentence, understand and critique the ideas therein\\) is learning the language. There are some real gems and much food for thought out there, if you have the assiduity and time to learn Latin.\n\nI should add that the vast majority of reasons traditionally proposed for learning Latin are nonsense. You can learn the roots faster by merely studying them, absent the language of origin. It doesn't help think logically any more than any other subject, certainly not more than any other language. Russian offers many of the same challenges as Latin, and is more useful, if you're looking to change your view of language and communication. *Et cetera ceteraque ad nauseam.*\n\nFinally, we're in a sort of mini\\-renaissance of Latin, Greek, and Classical studies. This happens periodically in the west, every 700 years or so. Why not get on board yourself and learn Latin?",
"There are no speakers because at a certain point you grow tired of summoning demons in casual conversation. \n\nAnd the why? Summoning demons obviously",
"I took it for two years and it helped me with learning German and picking up Spanish. It is a \"dead\" language, but it is the base for many others. ",
"Learning Latin is also beneficial as it expands your knowledge about many words we already use and this might help you develope deeper insight, adding more layers of meaning to words you already know. It is specially useful to writers as it may help them to craft a richer paragraphs. And shit.",
"Many languages die off as they evolve or branch out. But the influence of the roman empire upon the world of mankind was so strong, its roots so vast, that the language survived oblivion. \n \nLatin as a language survived because the roman empire was so mighty and influencial, that even to this day nothing as glorious and awe inspiring has challenged it. The prestige of knowing latin is borrowing etos to the speaker to this day, that is how strongly the echoes of the roman empire ripple throughout history. ",
" Three things I'm not seeing in a lot of explanations into why it's still used today are the Catholic Church, scientific naming conventions, and the influence of Roman law in modern legal systems (particularly in the US).\n\n\nAnother commenter, u/iamgimli_, among others, did post that the Catholic Church is a major reason, but I hadn't seen it in a level one post, so I wanted to add it here. ~~I'll try to add that commenter in later to give credit.~~ (many others pointed this out, upon review, but OP was what I remembered seeing). But, as they said, the widespread influence of Catholicism across the world, in large part with colonialism, meant elites in Catholic areas were instructed in Latin, at least in some part. \n\n\nScientific naming conventions go back to at least the [Enlightenment era](_URL_0_) partially because it was the language of elite education. \n\n\nThird, Roman law was a source of law for [much of European law, civil and common](_URL_0_). Roman authors like Cisero were widely read and cited by [America's Founders](_URL_2_). And the Supreme Court of the US has a [history of citing Roman law and legal thinkers.](_URL_1_)\n\n\nSo there's lots of reasons Latin is used today, mostly because of historical use of Latin, but also, as most others have said, it's a \"dead\" language, meaning it's less likely to be misinterpreted due to changing language use. ",
"Latin is the language of many high functioning careers. People hoping to enter the fields of law, medicine, chemistry and biology will want some familiarity with basic Latin because much of the knowledge they need to gain is based in Latin roots. \n\nThere are also 5 different European languages with Latin root words, and understanding it can help someone learn any of the romance languages at a faster rate, and even understand some of the words without knowing the language. So it's useful even for things like travel or studying abroad. \n\nI took it in school and I think I was the only person in that class that wasn't planning to be a doctor or a lawyer. I wanted to learn it because I'm an avid reader and at the time I was especially into classical literature from the Greeks and Romans. \n\n",
"Wow folks, I didn't expect that many answers 😮 To be honest with you: I am currently studying to become a teacher of Latin myself and we always face the problem that we need to justify ourselves. So I sneakily asked the internet for ideas😄\nThanks a lot for all the answers❤"
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"https://blogs.loc.gov/law/2015/03/references-to-roman-law-in-us-courts/",
"https://21stcenturycicero.wordpress.com/tyrrany/the-founding-fathers-the-classics/"
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2dzcbt | how could cities like new york build extensive subway lines in the early 20th century, but these days it seems like a simple extension of a current line costs an arm and a leg? | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/2dzcbt/eli5_how_could_cities_like_new_york_build/ | {
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"When the subways were first built there wasn't much in the ground. Now a hundred years later, there's a bunch in the ground. Sewage, water mains, cable, electricity, it all has to be rerouted if a new route cuts through them. \n\nThe subways weren't cheap in the first place. It cost about 35m for the original subway which is about a billion today. Count all the logistics of moving everything and you can see why adding an extension would be so expensive\n",
"It costs an arm and a leg, so it doesn't cost an arm and a leg. Safety. ",
"One thing you have to take into consideration is the methods of building. \nWhen the subway was originally built a century ago they used a method called \"cut and cover\". They cut open the ground, built the tunnels, THEN covered them up. This is probably a much cheaper way of doing it than what we are doing now which is burrowing under the ground. On top of that?, the city is so busy now that cut and cover would be too much of an inconvenience to the city. This also explains why projects such as the 2nd avenue line are taking DECADES to finish rather than the few years it took to create the whole system. It takes a lot more money, time, and cautuon caution to burrow under the infrastructure we have now. \nIll update later with source material as I am currently on my way home (on the Staten Island railway of all things) and am on mobile. \n\nEdit: Came home to find someone already beat me to the explanation. Ah well!"
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1spudb | when i put air into my tires in the winter after the pressure goes down because of the cold, why don't the tires explode when the pressure rises back in the spring? | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/1spudb/eli5_when_i_put_air_into_my_tires_in_the_winter/ | {
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"They are slowly losing some of that pressure as they are used. ",
"Tyres leak air faster at higher than rated pressures, largely due to valve losses, though some is lost through the rubber itself. This means as the pressure in your tyre rises, it leaks faster, so it falls, a self regulating feedback loop",
"Most tires have pressure relief in the valve. If the pressure rises beyond limits, the valve will expend the excess gas. This is similar to how pressure relief works on your water heater, or most other pressure tanks. Effectively the valve leaks before the tire explodes. "
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60klhh | why does a webpage jump around on its own if i am scrolling through it and it is still loading? shouldn't it recognize that i am scrolling and not jump to where it wants to go? | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/60klhh/eli5_why_does_a_webpage_jump_around_on_its_own_if/ | {
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"Depends on the web page, but it's likely jumping because it's still loading all of the images and other things on the page, which might push the text down and cause it to \"jump\". ",
"A \"feature\" known as reflow. \n\nIt's present in a lot of major web browsers. When the HTML of a page changes (not limited to but is the biggest culprit), it triggers a reflow. The web browser recalculates how it should display and by default it will bring the page back to the top.\n\nSo you're looking at a Web page reading all of the good content whilst a large image or ad is slowly loading in the background. You get half way through the article and the image finishes loading. It gets rendered on the page.. BAM.. reflow.. you're now back at the top of the page dazed and confused. Rage sets in. Phone gets launched into the nearest wall. You never find out the 10 things that will truly make you happy in life. And the cycle continues."
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3vbfx7 | when you open your mouth underwater, why doesn't the water immediately flood your mouth and go down your throat? | Say you took an empty plastic soda bottle underwater. If you took off the cap, water would rush in and fill the bottle.
Why doesn't the same happen with the human mouth/throat? Especially if you're farther down where the pressure is higher. | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/3vbfx7/eli5_when_you_open_your_mouth_underwater_why/ | {
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"No, not really. Actually try your experiment.\n\nLungs and soda bottles are not \"empty\". There is air in them, not a vacuum. When water tries to fill a container, an efficient outlet for the air must exist or the filling will be slow, delayed or all-together stalled. So when the air tries to escape, the water slows it down. But also, your diaphragm probably maintains *some* [pressure on your chest cavity to keep air in.](_URL_2_)\n\nSee: \n[Vented pouring](_URL_0_)\n\n[Cup upside-down trick](_URL_1_)",
"It does immediately flood your mouth, but it doesn't go down your throat for the same reason you can pour a cup of water into your mouth without it immediately falling down your throat: the muscles in your tongue, pharynx and esophagus allow you to control when you want something to go down your throat (i.e. swallowing)"
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"https://www.google.com/search?q=vented+pouring&source=lnms&tbm=isch&sa=X&ved=0ahUKEwiUteWYucDJAhUF54MKHVZnAWwQ_AUICCgC&biw=1280&bih=913",
"https://www.google.com/search?q=cup+upside+down+trick&source=lnms&tbm=isch&sa=X&ved=0ahUKEwili-S2ucDJAhXTjYMKHZXBAGEQ_AUIBygB&biw=1280&bih=913",
"https://www.google.com/search?q=diaphragm+in+breathing&ie=utf-8&oe=utf-8"
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5djeq1 | mass surveilance. what's the point? | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/5djeq1/eli5_mass_surveilance_whats_the_point/ | {
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"They had the power, then people got uppity and started pushing back against government managing their lives. Taxes got cut, and government leverage went down. Earmarks got cut, and government ~~bribes~~ benefits to corporations went down. People started doing what they want, with whomever they want, and that sort of Libertine government has never been popular in puritanical north atlantic governments. Surveillance is a message, and the message is the point.",
"It is not as simple as having just your search history, although that is also something we should all have the right to protect. Mass surveillance amounts to an entire and as comprehensive accumulation of any and all data surrounding individuals, including Internet and cellular activity, physical location, and behavioral analysis. This information is useful to both governments and private entities because it is helpful in marketing to you, and (supposedly) helpful in protecting citizens by identifying the bad guys (aka drug dealers and terrorists). This is done not by human eyes but by sending all that glorious highly private and sensitive information through an algorithm that identifies key words, activity trends, suspicious behavior, and keeps a pristine record of all activity of every IP address that has ever existed, and ideally humans would only ever be alerted/get involved when something is super serious/prosecutable. In reality, the NSA is comprised of 20 something year olds that want to spy on their exes and pass around dick pics of random people. Great use of taxpayer $ right there. Either way, regardless of whether or not NSA pricks are stealing your dick pics, you bet your ass if you're a regular internet/cell phone user you have a file of your shit somewhere. ",
"I'll start by saying that I completely oppose mass surveillance, I'm merely answering your question.\n\nSo, there are several justifications for why such systems would be useful, and some do have their merits. The idea is that by collecting information on everything, a database can be created that could theoretically catch every security threat; specifically lone-wolf threats. The belief is that with a good enough algorithm you could automatically filter out all useful information, and that doing so would reveal a pattern that would identify likely security threats. That's one of the reasons why the government is so interested in advanced AI. The prevailing belief is that there's *always* some sign that someone is going to do something terrible, and if we just had **all** the information we'd be able to detect those signs in time to stop bad things from happening. \n\nI would dispute the truth of that argument, but there is some evidence for it. All the postmortems of spies and terrorists reveal that it was obvious to *someone, somewhere* that something bad was going to happen. Be it a single angry email to a friend or coworker, search results for shady things like hiding bodies or how to build bombs, frequenting certain websites, sudden changes in browser history, sudden changes in financial habits or spending, the list goes on and on. There are a thousand possible signs that someone is about to do something drastic, or has been enlisted by a nefarious entity; and some believe that we have a duty to collect all of everyone's information in order to keep everyone safe.\n\nThe fundamental belief is that all information is valuable, and that computers will eventually allow us to manage such a massive flow of data in such a way that total threat detection becomes plausible. It might seem outwardly evil to us, but think of it from an idealists perspective. If you could catch every spy, stop every murderer, foil every terrorist attack... wouldn't you? Personally, I have no doubt that such tools will be used as instruments of tyranny, but to a lot of people it's like turning down medicine you know will make you feel better... even if it might kill you in the process.",
"There was a very well written special report about this in this past weeks edition of The Economist. The goal of the modern intelligence service in Western countries is for the citizens to trust the state to manage the threats to their everyday lives. To do this, intelligence services must be able to use sources and methods that will inevitably involve intrusion. \n\nAfter 9/11 intelligence agencies were blamed for failing to connect the dots and were called upon to make the country safe. When their conduct came to light later in a less fearful world, they were condemned for their methods. \n\nMetadata surveillance programs are also a lot less expansive and more bureaucratic than most of the public believes. The NSA touches only 1.6% of data traveling over the internet and selects 0.025% for review with its analysts seeing just 0.00004%. In the metadata program each search of a seed had to be approved by 1 of 22 supervisors. There were audit trails baked into the process with triggers and warnings to managers of improper searches within the data sets. \n\nThe intelligence program has also been pretty effective. It helped identify the courier who led to Bin Laden. Between 2002 and 2013 the NSA helped foil 17 terrorist plots against New York. ",
"Imagine if you had a list of everyone who voted for the other party. Now imagine if you had a list of everyone who will _probably_ vote for the other party according to a computer algorithm that has parsed through all the mass surveillance data. Now imagine if you had the intent and means to keep them from voting so your party wins the election. This is one reason why people are so against the idea of mass surveillance.",
"Once upon a time they had fear of God to keep you rebels in line..... Now with fear of big Brother, you will censor and control yourself. "
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67saf4 | how do odors work? are they infinite? | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/67saf4/eli5_how_do_odors_work_are_they_infinite/ | {
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"It's molecules spreading away from an object, it smells less strong the further away you are because they dissipate. ",
"We have receptors in our nose that respond differently depending on the chemical structure of the molecules we breathe in from our environment. Receptors can send different signals to the brain depending on how the molecules interacts with them, which is due to molecular structure. For more background, the nerve responsible for scent is the olfactory cranial nerve. Little nerve fibers extend through the cribiform plate of the ethmoid bone (a hole-filled flat bone present above the roof of your mouth and such) to an inside portion of your nose. The signals are scent up from the receptors to the olfactory bulbs, where the signal is then transported to parts of the brain for processing.\n\nSource: current anatomy student"
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4wlfhe | why do infants grasp every object put in their palms? | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/4wlfhe/eli5_why_do_infants_grasp_every_object_put_in/ | {
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"I don't know how it was received, but the last thing I read speculated that it was a holdover from when mama had more hair. The grasp instinct helped them hold on as the parent went about the business of survival. ",
"It is a reflex of the muscle palmaris longus. The insertion tendon of it can be seen on the anterior side of the forearm when trying to touch thumb to pinky. It is kind of a vestigial muscle from our chimpanzee-like ancestors that would have to grasp tightly to the branch or mother's fur for survival. Now it serves the function of pulling hair and breast < joke > . With a good relationship the baby will learn not to pinch/hurt mother. Also, until a certain age the baby's eyesight only extends from breast to mothers face. Lastly, babies body isn't wired up/coordinated at that age. They spend alot of time playing with their bodies setting up procedural memory patterns for quick default movements (ie. millions different ways to pick up a glass)."
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2yowgm | why should i pay $50 to get my tires filled with nitrogen instead or regular air? | With my understanding nitrogen and oxygen are very similar elements. They have similar size, both diatomic, and electronegativity. I've read an article that said oxygen can escape through the rubber. If that's true so would nitrogen because it's an even smaller molecule. I'm not buying it. Is there some fact I'm missing? | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/2yowgm/eli5_why_should_i_pay_50_to_get_my_tires_filled/ | {
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"Nitrogen is more stable during temperature changes and therefore your pressure won't fluctuate as much",
"You shouldn't. \n\nAir is 78% nitrogen to start with. I've never seen evidence that identifies oxygen leaking as a problem. If your tires are leaking enough to notice, then you have a tire problem, not an air problem.\n\nI'm no expert, but have put about 300K miles on various cars. Never seen wheel corrosion that's a problem. Never seen tires that leak because of the air inside. I've put 50K miles on my current tires, regular air, and maybe added air once...\n\nI live in a pretty mild climate, so temp changes aren't as big of a deal, but even if it was, you're only talking about displacing 28% of the inert air, which means that if you're losing a pound of pressure with regular air, you're only going to reduce that reduction by, at most 28%. Which is less than most tire gauges can measure. Certainly less than TPMS measures.\n\nAsk yourself this: **Do I have a problem that needs solving, or am I buying into marketing hype?**\n\n[_URL_0_](_URL_1_) does not think it's worth the investment, FYIW.",
"When you are flying your jumbo jet at 30000ft in temperatures of -40, not having moisture in the stuff filling your tyres helps. \nWhen you are landing said jumbo jet and the tyres strike tarmac and rapidly heat up, having them filled with an inert gas helps.\n$50 isn't really much compared to the other costs of a jumbo jet flight.\n\n...oh, you have a car? You don't need this, then.",
"I wouldn't unless it's free. If you get your tires from Costco, they have free nitrogen for your tires.",
"If it is free get it, but it isn't worth $50. Some places don't charge (I know a few local dealerships don't, as well as Costco). \r\rThe main benefit is that it expands/contracts a bit less than air with a change in temperature so your pressure stays a but more constant and this leads to more consistent wear. \r\rAnother vendor is the reduced corrosion in the rims. Lots of rims don't experience issues, but some brands can have tons of issues and leak right where the tire and rim meet. ( I hate escalade rims with a passion).\r\r\rPro tip: Air or nitrogen, check pressures when tires have sat more than 3 hours or driven less than a mile. Follow the spec on your driver door panel/ owners manual and NOT what the side of the tire says."
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9182kh | why aren't doctor's/dentist's offices open on the weekends | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/9182kh/eli5_why_arent_doctorsdentists_offices_open_on/ | {
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"Because doctors don’t want to work weekends and as it’s a necessity people really don’t really get to protest the scheduling by not going "
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6bmfch | how do languages change over time? | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/6bmfch/eli5_how_do_languages_change_over_time/ | {
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"When they were your age, your grandparents didn't speak the way you speak now. Each generation has its own manner of speaking that's very slightly different from the last, and over centuries these differences add up.\n\nThere are some very obvious changes in vocabulary. Some of them are very deliberate, such as saying \"awesome\" as a general expression of praise. Some of them come about because the way we lead our lives has changed: a \"computer\" was originally a person whose job it was to make calculations, then any tool used by that person, and finally a machine that can do lots of calculations very quickly. The job of \"computer\" no longer exists, so the meaning of the word has changed.\n\nThere are also changes in grammar. Human language is incredibly complicated, and we don't always learn all of the rules with 100% accuracy. Because the way we speak is influenced not just by our parents and teachers but also by how our peers speak, these changes in grammar can sometimes become the norm. Right now, English is losing the distinction between \"who\" and \"whom\": the distinction no longer serves any real purpose (you wouldn't misunderstand me if I said, \"Who are you looking at?\" because the structure of the sentence makes the meaning clear), and purists who insist you must say \"Whom are you looking at?\" are fighting a losing battle.\n\nBut not only do some rules disappear, new rules appear. These days, we make a distinction between \"going to\" in a sentence like, \"I'm going to London next week,\" and \"going to\" in a sentence like, \"I'm going to win this race.\" In the second sentence you can replace \"going to\" with \"gonna\", but not in the first (\"I'm gonna London\" doesn't make much sense). Probably, \"gonna\" will eventually evolve into a particle used to mark a future tense, perhaps listed in grammar references as the \"immediate future\" or something equally important-sounding.\n\nPronunciation also changes slightly. For example, some British English speakers, especially younger ones, pronounce the \"r\" in a slightly different way, almost like a \"w\". In some Australian and American dialects, there's been a trend to end declarative sentences with a rising intonation, almost as if asking a question.\n\nPronunciation is also physically very difficult, as you have to drag your tongue all around your mouth in very precisely controlled ways, and coordinate that with your lips, jaw, glottis and diaphragm. Not surprisingly, the brain looks for shortcuts, which is why words like \"knee\" and \"psycho\" have those pesky silent letters: it's just too much trouble to pronounce them, so we don't.\n\nAnd then, of course, languages can be influenced by other languages. For example, American English has been strongly influenced by languages such as German (\"kindergarten\", \"über\") or Yiddish (\"klutz\", \"schlock\")."
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7y3o6i | why does the teaching profession have a much higher job security compared to other occupations. | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/7y3o6i/eli5why_does_the_teaching_profession_have_a_much/ | {
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"Quality teachers are rare, considering the terrible pay. When you get good ones you need to lock them down. \n\nSometimes even mediocre ones will do considering the things teachers have to put up with. ",
"Tenure is a tradeoff. Professors get freedom to have independent thoughts and opinions without getting fired, in a work environment where political correctness/trigger warnings/social justice or a zillion other things might work against independent thought."
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agmpj9 | how does my iphone x know where i’m parked? | It also knows where my house is, but I can understand that a little bit easier. It could just analyze where I go back to every day. But how the hell does it know how many feet away my car is, and on what street? It’s pretty rad, so I’m not complaining, it just strikes me as strange because I never “told” my phone I was parking. It adjusts daily based on where I choose to park too so it’s not like it’s just adjusting to trends over time. | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/agmpj9/eli5_how_does_my_iphone_x_know_where_im_parked/ | {
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"I believe it uses the accelerometer and gyroscope (and bluetooth if your car uses it, as well as CarPlay) to know you're driving. Then, when it detects you've stopped driving, it marks the GPS location as your parking spot.\n\nThis is also how the Do Not Disturb while driving feature works.",
"I imagine it would be one of two things obviously both GPS but one would be simpler and that is if you connect your phone to the car and then remember where it was when you disconnected. the other one could be to do with speed similar to how Pokémon go changes the way it worked if your going to fast to be walking your driving and in Pokémon's case none appear because... Well your driving and in this case just remember where you were last time you was too fast to be walking. By the way these are just my opinion on what I think might be happening."
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5z90uo | how do ads help sell products, even when everybody hates them? | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/5z90uo/eli5_how_do_ads_help_sell_products_even_when/ | {
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"You may hate the ad, but the more you see a company name and know what they sell, the more likely you are to think of that company when in the market for that item \n\nEdit: a word",
"Here are a few basic reasons:\n\n1. Not everyone hates ads. People will watch the trailer for a movie they like or read an article about a gadget they want to buy (often those are also paid advertisements). Lots of people enjoy certain ads and buy products based on them.\n\n2. They create brand recognition. I bought my wallet in a large part because it was a Fossil brand wallet. I had never bought anything from them before, but I had seen ads and I knew they claimed to have quality products. I figured it was a better bet than a brand I had never heard of. People like to buy good products and people assume that brands they have heard of must be popular or good.\n\n3. They remind you of their good product. I never want to see an ad for Taco Bell. I would much prefer to continue my day uninterrupted by Taco Bell ads. However, those ads do remind me that Taco Bell exists and I could purchase food there. Even if I don't like the ad, it reminds me of a product I know I like and this influences my future purchasing decisions. If I have seen 10 ads for Taco Bell in the last week and 1 ad for Del Taco, I am much more likely to think about Taco Bell when I decide I want fast food.\n\nObviously, there is a lot more that goes into advertising, but those are some basic reasons ads work and some of the things advertisers try to achieve.",
"There are actually many different kinds of advertising that are all intended to do different things. The kind of ad you're expected to 'like' is only one kind of them - think Superbowl commercials. This is the most simple, basic form of advertising that attempts to charm you with the brand.\n\nOther forms of ads are about getting an idea in your head using whatever means. If I said something like \"It's my money, and I need it *now*!\" you'd probably instantly know what I was talking about. Are they 'good' commercials? Heck no. Nobody is going to watch that in their free time. But they are effective commercials, because they pulled off a phrase/idea that sticks with you. Now if you get desperate and strapped for cash, that idea is waiting around, wrapped up in this strangely catchy phrase. Another good example of this is HeadOn, which by virtue of its completely ridiculous commercial, penetrated the public consciousness.\n\nThere are lots of other kinds of ads that work in different ways. But the TL;DR is that it doesn't really matter if you hate it. The ad is attempting to work on the massive scale, superseding your likes and dislikes in favor of a broad strategy. Products penetrating our consciousness is very common, and people abstaining from a product because they hate the ads is comparatively rare.\n\nI would love to link you to some reading on this, but wikipedia's marketing section is a giant web of links."
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69q9rb | how is it possible for other countries to hack elections? | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/69q9rb/eli5_how_is_it_possible_for_other_countries_to/ | {
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"When people are talking about \"hacking the election\", they're not just talking about directly manipulating ballots.\n\nIt's more a reference to social engineering (called \"active measures\" by the Russian security forces) to manipulate the public to achieve a result desired by a foreign power.\n\nYou add in the actual hacking of *information* (e.g. Clintons and Macrons emails) and the term \"hack\" sticks.\n\nIt's \"hacking\" in the sense of subverting and manipulating the process rather than more overt tactics like directly editing the vote count."
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9wkw6b | why do traditional rain boots have those little loops on them? | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/9wkw6b/eli5_why_do_traditional_rain_boots_have_those/ | {
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"You’ve heard of bootstraps? Those are they. "
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3g53p8 | if hitler was a socialist, a leftist political ideology, why are neo nazi parties like the golden dawn considered the 'far right'? | Hitler ran the Nationalist Socialist party in Germany. He admitted to following Marxism, once saying, "I have learned a great deal from Marxism"..."as I do not hesitate to admit."
The Golden Dawn in Greece seems to be a clone of the Nazi party, but is classified as far-right.
_URL_0_ | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/3g53p8/eli5_if_hitler_was_a_socialist_a_leftist/ | {
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"Because \"left\" and \"right\" are fairly meaningless terms once you start using them to compare whole ideologies and ideologies from different countries. A particular set of beliefs can have both \"left wing\" and \"right wing\" features.",
"Hitler was not a socialist.\n\nHe used the National Socialist Party as a stepping stone to power. Once he got that power he had many of them murdered in what is known as the [Night of the Long Knives](_URL_0_):\n\n > Adolf Hitler moved against the SA and its leader, Ernst Röhm, because he saw the independence of the SA and the penchant of its members for street violence as a direct threat to his newly gained political power. Hitler also wanted to conciliate leaders of the Reichswehr, the official German military who feared and despised the SA—in particular Röhm's ambition to absorb the Reichswehr into the SA under his own leadership. Additionally, Hitler was uncomfortable with Röhm's outspoken support for a \"second revolution\" to redistribute wealth. (In Röhm's view, President Hindenburg's appointing of Hitler as German Chancellor on January 30, 1933 had accomplished the \"nationalistic\" revolution but had left unfulfilled the \"socialistic\" motive in National Socialism.)\n\nAlso, realize you cannot put too much on a name alone. The former East Germany was decidedly socialist but was called the DDR or Deutsche Demokratische Republik (German) or German Democratic Republic (English). North Korea, which is about as far from being democratic as you can get, is properly called the Democratic People's Republic of Korea (DPRK).\n",
"Defining Socialism as \"left wing\" is a feature of the American Social Conservatives defining themselves as \"Right wing\" and defining anything \"socialist\" as \"Left wing\".",
"Hitler nearly had to fight a civil war against the german communist party. He did not believe in, nor did he promote collective ownership of capital (*the* core of socialist thought). Communist dissidents were among the first to be persecuted in concentration camps (unsurprisingly since they were the most likely to violently resist the nazi's entering government and then seizing control). \n\nHitler was not a socialist nor did his party promote socialist policy. He was a nationalist who desired to create a unified German polity not torn by the divisions inherent to liberal democracy.",
"The Nazis were actually Fascist, not Socialist... kind of like how North Korea official name is \"Democratic People's Republic of Korea\" when clearly they are nothing of the sort.",
"Not a socialist as he constantly raged against 'jewish bolsheviks'. Naziism is about as far right as you can go. There are a few /r/badhistory and badpolitics threads about people saying nazis are socialists",
"You're getting hung up on the name. It's true that when you go extremely left or extremely right, you actually overlap on a few key issues. That's why you can't get too hung up on dictionary definitions of what \"left\" and \"right\" are, because \n\na) it varies from country to country \n\nb) it's occasionally a lie (Democratic People's Republic of Korea lol)\n\nc) it's more useful to learn about the party itself rather than trying to classify it with predefined definitions.\n\nHitler and the Nazis were fascists, and were very, very far right. ",
"ELI5 - Depending on where we are standing, my left/right, and your left/right aren't the same - \"lefftist\" in the USA would be pretty far \"right\" in parts of Europe. \n\nELI16: Try looking at politics as having 2 axes, like an x-y plane, rather than just a single line, like [this](_URL_0_) - whether based in left-wing or right-wing extremes, when parties become very authoritarian, like your examples, they begin to appear very similar. Also see [Horseshoe Theory](_URL_1_)",
"People might've already covered this, but the Nazi party was actually very far right. The name Nationalist Socialist party is just that, a name. Both Golden Dawn and Nazi are far right.",
"Hitler was, absolutely, positively, definitely not a leftist or a socialist. He was a fascist, which is a decidedly right-wing ideology. Hitler adopted the term socialism because back in the 20s in order to add support for his burgeoning party. He never really had any intention of carrying out socialist policies. (Source: This is discussed in Rise and Fall of the Third Reich by William Shirer) \n\nOnce he came to power, Hitler cracked down hard on the institutions of socialism - the German communist party, the trade unions, etc. \n\nAs an aside: A few years ago, Jonah Goldberg wrote a book a few years called \"Liberal Fascism.\" The title is an oxymoron (although Goldberg would claim otherwise). The rest of the book is no better, either. Here's what one reviewer said:\n > Of all the things we know about fascism and the traits that comprise it, one of the few things that historians will readily agree upon is its overwhelming anti-liberalism. One might as well write about anti-Semitic neoconservatism, or Ptolemaic quantum theory, or strength in ignorance. Goldberg isn't content to simply create an oxymoron; this entire enterprise, in fact, is classic Newspeak. \n-- _URL_0_",
"Basically, Hitler had no real economic policy. Capitalism (right) and socialism (left) are economic policies. Hitler had no real economic theory, his policies were utterly focused on race and behavior. Nazism and fascism don't necessarily fall on a left/right spectrum of economic ideals. Right wing capitalists care about money first and foremost. Socialists care about money first and foremost. Fascists care about power, personality, and control of people. Economics are a component to their bigger picture, and Hitler didn't really care about how the economy was managed as long as it was a war machine. Source: _URL_0_",
"Hitler was a fascist wearing a 'National Socialist' guise. Don't be confused. Hitler was a right wing as they come.",
"I'd like to clear up the misconception. The only thing socialist about the National Socialist Party (Nazi) is in the name. The Nazi party was a quasi-fascist \"corporatist\" party which is on the opposite side of the political spectrum of socialism.\n\nThis made the 1939 German-Soviet Nonaggression pact that much more bizarre, because the two countries involved were by all measures the definition of enemies.\n\nEdit: a word",
"While the actions of the nazis after gaining power show that they weren't socialist, they also weren't on the far right. The far right is where the anarchists would fit on the spectrum. \nTotalitarianism uses a political ideology to gain power and then discards it once power is obtained in favor of whatever serves the political elite at the moment. This is why totalitarian regimes can be formed by both far right and far left candidates. And once they are established they act largely the same. ",
"Hitler was not really a Socialist. Much in the same way an election does not really make your country democratic.",
"In short, the Nazis were NATIONAL Socialists. (that is where Nazi comes from of course) This means they were concerned with making ethnically German people equal to each other and above all other ethnicities/races. It didn't matter if you were a banker or a butcher, what mattered was you were German. It is well documented that Hitler hated communism, I think because it emphasized equality among all peoples, not so much for the economic framework of communism. There in lies the reason Nazism is on the right side of the political spectrum; the Nazi's domestic social policies focused on extreme racism/ethnocentrism which are far right traits. As for your quote from Hitler about Marx, I think he had an understanding of Marxism but he was not sympathetic to its cause. The nazi-soviet non-aggression pact was a facade in my opinion. Hitler had no intention of giving half of Poland to communists, hell, his biggest opponent in the Weimar republic were the various communist parties. ",
"Interesting comment about Fascism on wikipedia being influenced by the both right and the left below. \n\n_URL_0_\n\n > Fascism was influenced by both left and right, conservative and anti-conservative, national and supranational, rational and anti-rational.[33] A number of historians regard fascism either as a revolutionary centrist doctrine, as a doctrine that mixes philosophies of the left and the right, or as both those things.[34][35] Fascism was founded during World War I by Italian national syndicalists who combined left-wing and right-wing political views.\n\nAs I read that comment it kind of makes sense to me as both sides (left and right) would pick the parts of Facism that matches the other side and point to it as evidence of the other side being related, thus disassociating themselves from Hitler/Nazis.\n\nFucking Hitler ruining political debates 70 years after his death, fuck that guy. ",
"What if left vs. right is a illusion. An over simplification of smt. way more complex with more dimensions than just left and right. Even a walk in the park has more to it. And thats not even a ideology. How about trying to use your brain instead of repeating a journalist or a politicians. How benefits from turning ideology into one dimension only?",
"Because the single line right/left is a poor political model, and people do not necessarily follow what is in their name.\n\n_URL_0_\n\nThis is a better (not at all perfect) representation of political ideology.\n\nIn this Hitler would have been at the top of the Y axis and a bit towards the right. \n\nMargret Thatcher would be more right to the X axis but only about half way up the Y. \n\nCommunists would sit far up on the y and far to the left on the X. \n\nSocialists are under the Y axis and about half way to the left on the X. \n\nLibrarians would be more about half way to the right on the X and pretty far down on the Y.\n\nThis is also why far left and far right movements can have the same ideals, if they are both at similar points on the Y axis.\n\nI am sure you get the idea.",
"At the height of Nazi power, Germany in 1941 was fighting wars of choice on two fronts and most its money went into the military. The top marginal income tax rate was 13%. Corporations paid even less taxes, if any at all, did not have to worry too much about ecological issues and got their labor cheaply from a minority imprisoned for mostly nonviolent crimes. People in poverty and immigrants were vilified. Homosexuality wasn't tolerated at all. Meanwhile, a large domestic surveillance network was being created to fight terrorism, and the police conducted summary executions in the street.\n\nGroups regularly call themselves things they are not to confuse people who don't look too closely at what they do.",
"Nazism and fascism on the whole doesn't neatly fit on the left/right political spectrum that people like to use to simplify political conversations. That being said, Hitler was not a Leftist.",
"A core tenet of Nazi ideology was that differences in intelligence, morality, physical fitness, etc, were primarily inherited rather than caused by the environment.This is the polar opposite of the socialist position, which is based on Marx's idea that \"man is an ensemble of social relations\" - i.e., all of a person's characteristics are determined by the socioeconomic conditions in which that person exists, and if you improve the socioeconomic conditions, you improve the person.\n\nThis, more broadly, is the main difference between the political left and right. The right believes that inequality between individuals stems from nature and is largely intractable (some people are just intrinsically smarter and more hard-working than others), and thus that socioeconomic stratification is completely justified and attempts to lessen it will be counterproductive at best and tyrannical at worst. The right does not oppose \"big government\" in principle - that's just a propagandistic dog-whistle term. What they actually oppose is a welfare state that in their view props up the stupid and lazy and makes them disobedient toward their superiors, i.e. toward businesspeople. They oppose trade unionism for the same reason. \n\nHitler's disagreement with the \"free market\" right was over means, not ends. Hitler disliked laissez-faire capitalism because he thought it was too prone to crises (therefore giving strength to the Communist left) and too vulnerable to Jewish infiltration. However, his view of human relations was much closer to that of Mises or Ayn Rand than to Rousseau or Marx. \n\nKershaw's biography of Hitler contains the definitive statement on his economic ideology:\n\n > Hitler was never a socialist. But although he upheld private property, individual entrepreneurship, and economic competition, and disapproved of trade unions and workers' interference in the freedom of owners and managers to run their concerns, the state, not the market, would determine the shape of economic development. Capitalism was, therefore, left in place. But in operation it was turned into an adjunct of the state.",
"The original Nazi party had a few socialist principles at first, but those pretty quickly got swept away, and they went full right-wing by the time they were Blitzkreiging across Europe.\n\nAnd modern neo-Nazi parties are not even THOSE Nazis, but just a pack of modern jagoffs who think being Nazis is cool. They are *seriously* right-wing, even moreso than Hitler's mob.\n\n",
"Yes and no. The serious misunderstanding on this issue is derived from the lack of a proper political spectrum. We still use a 1 dimensional spectrum for politics (left and right), but we also have 2D and 3D political spectrums (which are way better). Where Hitler was depends on which spectrum you use. If you use the 1 dimensional spectrum then Hitler was definitely far right. However if you use a 2D spectrum then he was an authoritarian centrist* (_URL_0_). The 2 axes are economics (horizontally) and civil liberties/ rights (vertically). As we all know Hitler was definitely not a fan of giving people rights hence he is far up on the link I have provided. Regarding economics however he did not really care about left or right as long as he got what he needed. He did in fact say that economics is something of secondary importance. Hitler did put in place many left leaning policies such as import restrictions, subsidies and nationalized many key industries. This is known, but still makes him a bit of a centrist. \n\nHitler also hated commies which were known to be far left. This combined with a terrible 1 dimensional spectrum is also likely to have contributed to him being called far right. Why he hated commies is a slightly different discussion.\n\n*I want to keep this brief, but there is also some sort of a debate whether Hitler was left leaning. It is argued that while there were \"free\" corporations in Nazi Germany that if they ever stopped going along with the \"voluntary\" transactions (which they did profit off of) then Hitler would shut them down and either replace and/or nationalize.\n\nIt is also worth noting that most neo-fascist parties do not identify with being far right. \n\nPS: I know that I should list sources , but I am at 1% on my phone.\n\nTL;DR: Hitler was an authoritarian asshole who would not hesitate to use the left or right of economics to get the job done, but there is a lot of confusion since political spectrums are weird and since he didn't like commies (because commies are \"for the people\" and Hitler did not like the people)",
"This is why left-right is a bad way to think about politics. Reality is way too nuanced for that. It's not one-dimensional.\n\nNational socialism was more akin to fascism, which is another doctrine that came from the left, but isn't what most people think of when they think \"left-wing.\" It's not trying to give power and capital to the people. Instead, it is trying to make the nation the most important element of society. \n\nRather than being an economic model in and of itself, it is a militaristic dictatorship. People will alternately label these types of governments/ideals as far-left or far-right, but in the end, that description isn't really useful. \n\n",
"The Nazi's have a complex political background. By every right their social politics were anti-democratic, radically xenophobic, reactionary and statist. As far as economic politics things are more complicated. The Nazis were originally composed of competing sects. Hitler came from a right-wing sect composed mostly of provincial Bavarians, Goebbels on the other hand came from the pamphleteering center-left Berlin sect, for instance that had leanings toward radical workers rights, while still having a racist core. This group was destroyed (and betrayed by Goebbels during the buildup to the beerhall pusch). \n\nJust remember that our superficial use of political categories in the media does not meaningfully represent the continuum of politics during this era. This was the mass European reaction to the demise of feudalism. Where people held onto the figure of the great leader, normally in response to deep economic malaise, there was a tendency toward fascism. But simultaneously there was the battle for the support of the new industrial working class. They would be battled for, in most of Europe, between fascists and communists (also note that groups that are often homogenized in modern discourse represented distinct political positions at the time--the socialist congress had competing egalitarian socialists (Proudhon), anarchists (bakunin, Marx and various forms of communism (Lenin, Trotsky, Luxemborg) as well as various other leftists.\n\nIn truth despite all the essentially meaningless propaganda about the miniscule Jewish population and their affect on the German economy (rather than the failures of Prussian and German military campaigns, backwoods resistance to modernization, and a low rent monarchy) the real problem with the Jews was their vocal position among the communist left.\n\nAnyway, while some bad recent historiography has tried to revise reality, Hitler was in no way left. He took for the state and installed a massive military and bureaucratic armature, but he did not redistribute wealth or destroy class systems. He completed one of the most effective campaigns of rapid modernization, but only for the ends of the state (which he saw as selfsame with the German people).\n\nThere is so much scholarship on this. When I get home I'll out together a good list of books for you. A dose of history would destroy the rampant Hitler metaphors and wild conspiracies you find on here. ",
"Western propaganda at its best.. Just because you read Karl Marx does not mean you are a socialist.. So sad how decades of this sort of propaganda have not only blinded the US general public but have left them wondering why Walmart is a product of \"the free market\" and the 1% thrive as they do..\n\nNext up you are gonna say his violence was the fault of violence in computer games?",
"Hitler rails against socialism in Mein Kampf. He literally says it's the work of the Jews. Lol",
"Germany's main Socialist party, the Social Democratic Party (which was the main opponent to the Nazi's in the last few free elections in Germany) was banned by Hitler and its members either hid in exile or sent to the concentration camps. I think that easily explains how much a \"Socialist\" Hitler was since he crushed Socialism and its followers in Germany.",
"Neo nazis in America is linked to the right because of extremist conservative ideology. At the time Hitler, despite the party label, was not a man we would consider left today."
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29yigk | would we be able to see new colours? | At the moment we are limited to a certain range of colours that we can see, but I was wondering if there would be a certain way to make other colours visible to us? | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/29yigk/eli5would_we_be_able_to_see_new_colours/ | {
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"There are thermal visors which allow us to see infrared, which is basically another colour. Many cameras can also pick up certain bands of infrared.\n\nThat said, our eyes detect three colours - red, green and blue. Through mixing you get a rainbow. If you lack one or two of these detectors, you are colour blind. However, there are animals that have 4 types of colour detectors (mostly birds and insects). Mantis shrimp has 16, thus having the most elaborated visual system ever discovered. \n\nWe could in theory get some mantis genes and splice it into our DNA, however already there are people with possible 4 kinds of colour detectors. Maybe even 50% of women and about 8% of men have higher colour discrimination.",
"Hey OP little neat trick here if you've never seen it before. And it doesn't work with all remotes/cameras... But try using a cellphone camera to look at the front LED of a TV remote and press buttons on the remote."
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1lk7n5 | why are studies on potential cancer cures like soursop so limited? | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/1lk7n5/eli5_why_are_studies_on_potential_cancer_cures/ | {
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"There are a million things that can be studied as potential cancer treatments. There's no particular reason to believe that soursop works at all. Most researchers prefer to direct their work into areas that actually have some prior plausibility. \n\nSomething to bear in mind: while various online advocate groups insist that X or Y is a cure for this or that type of cancer, that has no bearing whatsoever on whether X or Y *actually* shows any promise. Don't fall for the hype, in other words. "
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nchmb | why don't republicans want to nominate mitt romney? | He seems like the most electable candidate but apparently a large portion of the Republican base does not like him. Why is this? | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/nchmb/why_dont_republicans_want_to_nominate_mitt_romney/ | {
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" > a large portion of the Republican base does not like him.\n\nA large portion of the *uber right wing* (the loudest, most vocal, most financially contributing) Republican base does not like him.\n\nHe is Mormon, which is scary and different, and in their minds not Christian.\n\nHe is a moderate and a compromiser, which is not what tea-partiers/Fox News is after.\n\nHe comes across a bit too slick, almost a Republican Kennedy if you will.\n\nThe man is consistent at 20-25% in the polls which means he resonates with core traditional (Regan/Bush Sr./Dole type) Republicans, but not agenda based Republicans.\n\nThe new Republican party is being pushed by extremists in their party, and he doesn't fit their specific demographic.\n\n",
"A lot of people don't trust him. He's been on both sides of many major issues (taxes, gay marriage, abortion, individual mandate for health care). So, while what he's saying *now* sounds good to many Republicans, there's no particularly good reason to believe that he means it, or that he'll govern the way he says he will.\n",
"Christian conservatives don't trust his Mormon background.\n\nSocial conservatives don't trust his stances on abortion and gay rights.\n\nFiscal conservatives don't trust his stances on health care and taxation.\n\nHe might be more electable, but the increasingly conversative Republican base didn't have a problem with nominating less electable tea party candidates in Colorado, Delware, and Nevada, who lost their elections, and subsequently cost the Repulican part the Senate.\n\nMany of those kind of votes see Romney as being just as bad as Obama.",
" > a large portion of the Republican base does not like him.\n\nA large portion of the *uber right wing* (the loudest, most vocal, most financially contributing) Republican base does not like him.\n\nHe is Mormon, which is scary and different, and in their minds not Christian.\n\nHe is a moderate and a compromiser, which is not what tea-partiers/Fox News is after.\n\nHe comes across a bit too slick, almost a Republican Kennedy if you will.\n\nThe man is consistent at 20-25% in the polls which means he resonates with core traditional (Regan/Bush Sr./Dole type) Republicans, but not agenda based Republicans.\n\nThe new Republican party is being pushed by extremists in their party, and he doesn't fit their specific demographic.\n\n",
"A lot of people don't trust him. He's been on both sides of many major issues (taxes, gay marriage, abortion, individual mandate for health care). So, while what he's saying *now* sounds good to many Republicans, there's no particularly good reason to believe that he means it, or that he'll govern the way he says he will.\n",
"Christian conservatives don't trust his Mormon background.\n\nSocial conservatives don't trust his stances on abortion and gay rights.\n\nFiscal conservatives don't trust his stances on health care and taxation.\n\nHe might be more electable, but the increasingly conversative Republican base didn't have a problem with nominating less electable tea party candidates in Colorado, Delware, and Nevada, who lost their elections, and subsequently cost the Repulican part the Senate.\n\nMany of those kind of votes see Romney as being just as bad as Obama."
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5vmta1 | if the cleft chin is a dominant trait, why are non-cleft chins so much more common? | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/5vmta1/eli5_if_the_cleft_chin_is_a_dominant_trait_why/ | {
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"Just because a gene is dominant, doesn't mean its feature is going to be common. This is because the frequency of genes being dominant/recessive is not 50/50!\n\nLet's say that the non-cleft chin gene is 90% common, and the cleft chin gene is 10%. A simple model would say that this means, roughly 19% of the population have cleft chins and 81% have \"normal\" chins.\n\nThese %s only change if evolution starts selecting for one. If by some craziness, suddenly everyone without a cleft chin starts to die, then a few decades later, much more than 90% of people will have cleft chins. But, cleft chins have almost nothing to do with survival - good or bad, and so the proportion of each gene will remain (roughly) constant in the population."
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29bsk7 | why were there so many movies set in the midwestern us in the 1980's and none today? | In the 1980's, there were a lot of popular films films set in the Midwest from all sorts of genres (Robocop, Ferris Bueller's Day Off, Major League, The Blue's Brothers, etc.), but I can't think of a single recent film set in the Midwest. Why the decline? | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/29bsk7/eli5_why_were_there_so_many_movies_set_in_the/ | {
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"Well, for one thing, John Hughes is dead. He was responsible for a lot of 80s teen movies set in the Chicago area.",
"It depends on who decides where the movie \"takes place.\" Usually, it seems, people like to make their movies take place where they live, or grew up, or something. Like Kevin Smith where most of his movies take place in Jersey.",
"Recent movies set in:\n\nChicago: Transformers DOTM, Transformers AOE, Source Code, Little Fockers, Divergent, Bridesmaids, The Dilemna\n\nDetroit: Real Steel, Robocop\n\nelweshere in midwest: Up in the Air, Winters Bone, The Watch, Snitch\n\n\n\n"
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1v0m9v | why is winking associated with flirting/sexual behavior? | When did people begin to use winking to convey this? | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/1v0m9v/eli5why_is_winking_associated_with_flirtingsexual/ | {
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"text": [
"Winking or small gestures is associated with covertness; sharing of personal secrets and a sign of closeness and relationship. This suggests intimacy and is a physical form of say, calling someone by their nickname."
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9zi4ly | how does isopropyl alcohol works on eletronics? | disclaimer: this may be a stupid question but i wasnt able to find it around.
So, its common sense that pouring liquid directly into eletronic contacts will render these useless. So how does isopropyl alcohol "fix" some stuff? Yesterday, a friend of mine fixed a faulty motherboard by pouring alcohol over it then drying. He also said a friend of his fixed an Xbox One *(motherboard) this way. | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/9zi4ly/eli5how_does_isopropyl_alcohol_works_on_eletronics/ | {
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"It really only removes debris that could be in there. If you remove all the power and dry it afterwards, a lot of electronics don't even mind touching water. Alcohol is used because it evaporates very quickly. \n\n_URL_0_",
"In addition to drying quickly like the others said, it does not conduct electricity. Water, when it has ions in it (it almost always does), conducts electricity very easily. ",
"The problem with water and a lot of other stuff wat is left behind. If you put fat or som onil on a surface it might never evaporate and create a surface that is not conductin. Water can corrode metal so you ger a layer of non conduction metal oxide or is is salt and other minerals that was dissolved in the water that remain.\n\nSo you can have surface that are covred with non conductor and that can somtimes be fixed with a solvent like isopropyl alcohol. Other damages like extentive corrosion remove material from the metal part and the problem might be that there is no conductor left and that cant be fixed by cleaning. Other damages might be that you got a short from the liquid and it desroyed the part and it need to be replaced\n\n\nThe way to fix stuff on the surface of a connector it is to remove the stuff on the surface and expose the metal. isopropyl alcohol is a good solvent and can dissolve a lot of stuff that get on the surface. So when you clean it with isopropyl alcohol you will (hopefully) wash away what on the surface. The last step is that the renaming isopropyl alcohol had to be removed. Fortunately it evaporate fast and do not leave behind anything on the surface. So it will not damage a metalsurface and can whas away what was there before.\n\n\nSo you have a liquid that do not damage metal surface and can dissolve a lot of stuff that can cover them and do not leve anything bad behind when it evaporate.\n\n",
"Electronics technician here: alcohol is a great cleaner for electronics because it evaporates quickly without leaving any residue, it's pretty safe, and it dissolves greases, oils and other stuff while being safe for plastic and other electronics materials. \n\nIf you fixed a circuit board by simply pouring alcohol over it and waiting for it to dry, it almost certainly either had something *preventing* contact or *making* contact where that was wrong, that the alcohol dissolved or just flushed away. Alcohol can't make metal appear where a connection was broken, or put the magic smoke back into a component."
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5vsnqq | why aren't computers and other electronic devices instant, why is there a 'loading' time? | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/5vsnqq/eli5_why_arent_computers_and_other_electronic/ | {
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"because of how electronics work at the basic level.\n\neverything is synced to a metronome called the processor clock. the entire orchestra of several billion transitors operates on the processor clock's conductor timing. when processor clock says your data's ready to read, then read, not before. \n\nat the electrical level, it's because electricity doesn't flow instantly. it takes time to charge a circuit until the voltage reads more than 1.5volts, reading as a 1. and time to discharge a circuits so the voltage is less than 0.5volts reading a 0. ",
"All those electrons still need time to move and that stacks up. An instant is still a measure of time. Now stack that up. Instants become seconds- minutes - hours.",
"As stated electricity doesn't move instantaneously, however we also have to keep in mind that most thing that are run on electronic devices take a lot of mathematical conversion seeing as its input is merely 1s and 0s and needs to be transferred into a visual expression. This in turn puts some amount of strain on the devices processors, the time will depend on the device used and how 'powerful' it is which will reduce the time but will never actually reach instant. Think of it as a hyperbole in graphs, it will always get closer to the y but no matter what will never actually cut through or meet it. "
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1k2rwm | how is stephen hawkings able to communicate using a computer if his entire body is paralyzed? | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/1k2rwm/eli5_how_is_stephen_hawkings_able_to_communicate/ | {
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"He explains himself in fairly simple terms [here](_URL_0_).",
"Stephen Hawking has very limited (but sufficient) muscle control around is cheek area. Basically the computer displays a number of options and constantly scrolls through those options. Hawking can then indicate he wishes to select an option by flexing his cheek muscle. \n\nThis is an extremely inefficient way to operate a computer (obviously) and it can actually take several minutes for him to write out a response to a question (simple responses are not so difficult). When he makes speeches/presentations, the text is typically prepared ahead of time but I believe he controls how it is delivered (e.g. when to start a sentence or paragraph).\n\nIf I recall correctly, they are currently working on brain-controlled methods for him to operate a computer which may provide him with much better functionality and options than simply 'select'. This can't come soon enough though because I believe his cheek muscle is gradually weakening and soon he may have no control whatsoever.",
"If you ever get the chance to see Stephen Hawking \"talk\" in person, take it! When I was at a community college in the early 2000's, he was doing a talk at our event center, but generously gave a free talk in the cafeteria area of the college earlier in the day. People crammed themselves into any available space to watch him. I sat on the top edge of a chair for two hours.\n\nThe man is intelligent, witty, and hilarious. He talked about science as well as guest starring on the Simpsons. Because he has to spell out things so slowly, it does take him a while to formulate an answer on his computer, so he has an assistant who does a lot of talking for him, who also knows what Dr. Hawking would answer to certain things. I honestly rate seeing him as one of the top ten experiences in my life. ",
"I heard his cheek was his last active muscle... Does it mean that he will soon become entombed in his own body?",
"Not sure if this is relevant. Jason Becker, an extremely talented musician who also suffers from ALS, developed his own method of communication using eye movement to represent letters. When Jason and Stephen Hawking met, Hawking was impressed with it's efficiency, but did not adpot it himself. [Here's how it works](_URL_0_)",
"My question regarding Hawking would be how is he able to live so long after ALS destroyed his muscle function. I mean he's 71 and he was diagnosed when he was 21. ",
"No offence to Mr Hawkings , his book 'A Brief History of Time' is one of the reason I once decided to have a career as an astrophysicist , how did he fathered the kids if he was paralyzed . I know it is extremely offensive , but didn't his body was weakened enough not to move before his marriage ? "
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2uz02b | how do they resize a ring? | I've always wondered.. You see no welds, cuts or anything, so how do they resize it? | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/2uz02b/eli5_how_do_they_resize_a_ring/ | {
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"You heat it up and stretch it. If you resize it a lot you'll notice it becoming visibly thinner.",
"[Here's some pictures of repairing a ring](_URL_0_) - from [this thread on /r/pics a few days ago](_URL_1_).\n\nExpanding a ring a little bit could easily be done by just forcing it a bit further down the mandrel.\n\nFor more embiggening or shrinking, you can cut the ring and add/remove material. Since jewelry is made from relatively soft metals, it's easy to get a mostly seamless join back in there."
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1wfpsm | the benefit of government paying a 'baby bonus' | The Labour party in NZ is talking about giving parents of newborn children $60 a week, pretty much regardless of the family's financial situation. What are the benefits of this? Doesn't it just provide incentives for people to breed more?
I have heard a few reasons such as helping with Child Poverty or helping mitigate the effects of a counties aging population. If it is really about helping child poverty why not target it more towards lower income families, an continue it for a longer period of time? If it is about mitigating the effects of an aging population, isn't it just delaying the problem? | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/1wfpsm/eli5_the_benefit_of_government_paying_a_baby_bonus/ | {
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"It does give incentives to breed more. Thats considered by the government to be a good thing.\n\nThe reason you don't necessarily want to bias it towards low income families is that it incentivizes them to have more children than they can support long term (the baby bonus doesn't last forever). Thus it could increase the poverty problem.\n\nYou could also argue that the bonus should be higher for wealthier working mothers because without a high payment to offset lost income and promotion or career opportunities, those women wouldn't have children when they're otherwise better equipped to provide for them. However, you could equally argue that just represents more wealth accruing to the wealthy."
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2qmico | why would a company want to acquire a company just to dismantle it or resell it? | A random delve into Wikipedia led me to the Gillette company page, where I discovered they survived two takeover attempts before finally being saved by Warren Buffett.
In the sourced article it says that the takeover attempts came because the company started to make a large surplus and higher profit margins. The goal of the companies trying to acquire Gillette was to "actively seek offers to sell or dismantle Gillette if they managed to get representation on the [directors] board."
ELI5: If a company makes a large surplus and higher profit, why would the acquiring company/shareholders attempt to dismantle it? | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/2qmico/eli5_why_would_a_company_want_to_acquire_a/ | {
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"If the movie Wall Street taught me anything, it's that sometimes you make more money stripping and selling the company than keeping it together and running it as a business. Like being a parts supplier. It's also a good way to take out the competition, I guess, as well ",
"Also sometimes a company will own a certain patent or bit of program that another company sees as beneficial to own. Instead of waiting to create those resources themselves they can buy the company, in turn buying their patents and intellectual property. They might not care about the rest and sell it off. Just another take.",
"They thought the pencil and shampoo businesses would sell for more money than what they contributed to the stock price, leaving just the shaving products (and a pile of cash) behind in the original company.",
"I worked at a medical supply company this happened at. We had developed several nifty gadgets and software for medical devices (implanted pumps were our core product). Our owner died suddenly and the son sold the company to a conglomerate who only wanted the patents and licences and literally sold off everything else after firing every employee. ",
"It's not always for the purpose of dismantling it. Its usually for specific reasosn.. For example, let's say your software company is getting into the robotics and automation market, but you don't want to spend millions on research and development of the actual hardware--you estimate that will cost 150 million and take you 2 years to get to market. You realize it's actually cheaper and faster if you buy Acme Robots for 100 million dollars and just keep the research and hardware production departments. You don't need the software department, sales department, marketing department, etc ...you already have those. So, you basically dismantle the company and take what you need (you might even keep the top sales, marketing, and development guys just to ease your transition into your new market.\n\nAnother, quicker analogy is pretend you are rebuilding a mustang and you buy a second mustang to use for parts. ",
"Ignoring that apple is currently too big to buy and split up, let's use it as an example because we are familiar with the company.\n\nApple has a very good products design and creation division. They have plenty of retail stores in prime locations. They make some software, maybe they have a few factories, a repair facility. Massive cash reserves. Tons of patents.\n\nSnewzie's corporate raiders buys out Apple, replaces the board and CEO with Snewzie and friends. First take the company private, and get rid of all the other stockholders who might object or file lawsuits. Now that nobody else can object, we create a dividend to transfer the cash reserve to Snewzie's company, and to the ceo/board. Perhaps even take loans that are used to Snewzie an amazing CEO salary.\n\nSnewzie then sells off the retail locations to be stand alone premium electronics stores. Turn the products creation division and software into a consulting company that designs products for other companies as well. Maybe turn the factories and repair facilities a long with the genius bar into a stand alone company that repairs and upgrades consumer electronics. Some of the patents can be sold or licensed to other companies.\n\nAfter all that is sold off, and maybe the new spin offs are heavily saddled with debt, Snewzie has made a lot of money and searches for the next weak company to buy out. What happens to the new spun off Apple divisions is no longer Snewzie's concern, and most of the new divisions are not expected to survive, but since they've been spun off, it's now the issue for the new stock holders and board/ceo.",
"I work for [insert large silicon valley company name here]. They often acquire companies just for the software engineering talent because it's been so hard to hire recently. Company calls them acqui-hires."
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5nrxy3 | why do we wake up early when we don't have to but tend to wake up late when we need to be up? | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/5nrxy3/eli5_why_do_we_wake_up_early_when_we_dont_have_to/ | {
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"I was actually wondering the same thing not too long ago when I was on holiday. \nWe have just been on a cruise with endless activities and I found myself waking up at around 5am every morning. I wasn't actually able to do anything but watch tv until 8am but I think it is just the fact of waking up to something you really enjoy. After coming back, I have had a boat load of university assignments to finish, and I find myself waking up 9-10am. I usually get up at around 8am, but knowing that I am going to be sitting by a computer all day doing work, I find my bed just all that more comfortable.",
"The simple answer is stress causes this.\n\nBy setting a schedule your body will fall into a rhythm. After a while you don't really need the alarm at all. However as we know our natural rythems get disturbed occasionally. When we must get up we are creating stress that is easiest to avoid by doing nothing and that is what we want to do (avoid stress). On the weekend you don't have stress to avoid and your body is doing its thing.\n\nA sign of depression (just one of the signs) is oversleeping. Your mind allowing your body to avoid the stress of life every chance you get. Feel good that you feel awake when you don't have to. Your life is manageable to you.",
"I know the true answer. we are in the computer. you are people born and living in the computer. just some program, like a demon, bother you."
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1a7dxu | how they make flavours for chips to actually taste like the flavour? e.g.: cheesy garlic bread, sriracha, cheeseburger | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/1a7dxu/eli5_how_they_make_flavours_for_chips_to_actually/ | {
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"In essence it's like culinary science, much in the same way as artists create different shades of paint they create different flavours using extracts and the like. Most of the \"Flavourists\" are actually based in New Jersey but beyond that I don't know much."
]
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aiaxl4 | why are organizations like the nra allowed to spend money shifting a politicians viewpoint? | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/aiaxl4/eli5_why_are_organizations_like_the_nra_allowed/ | {
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"This sounds like bribery, but in theory it is not. The legal definition of bribery is \"If I pay you X, will you do Y?\". The NRA goes \"Here's a check from the NRA to your campaign. I'm making a donation because we feel the same way about gun control\". \"X for Y\" is never stated, although it's heavily implied. \n\nIt's like the difference between a prostitute saying \"We can have sex if you pay me $100\" and \"We should have a little party. I got us a hotel room, you should pay me back the $100 for the room\". Sex isn't specified, but both sides understand the exchange. \n\nPersonally, I think the definition should be changed. Or keep it, but force politicians to recuse themselves if involved in a vote that they took funding on. ",
"A simple explanation is that organisation is made up of a collection of the members. Organisation is a way for people to cooperate and drive there agenda as a group.\n\nSo NRA claim that they have 5 million members that they represent so they can say that they they represent the view of the members, if you did not support there agenda you are not a member and if you do not like changes they make you can leave. So the represent a large part of the population.\n\n",
"Well politician are elected, but they don't know the opinion of every single person they are elected by. In addition, they don't technically represent only the people that elected them, but the all people living in their district (depending on how election work there).\n\nSo you would say that it's normal for people to voice their opinion to the politician that represent them, otherwise that politician couldn't know what the people in their district want. You wouldn't see a problem with a single mother talking to their representative about problems she is facing and trying to change the mind of that politician so that he want to make changes in the laws to help that mother.\n\nIt's the same with the NRA, just on a bigger level. The NRA represent their members and so they want to make sure that the politician are aware of the position their member hold on certain issues. \n\nNow of course, there is issues with rich people having a bigger voice than poor people, or possible illegal actions taking place, but at it's core it's just people giving their opinion to the politician representing them."
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bd7lhx | is there a way to make an electric jet? | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/bd7lhx/eli5_is_there_a_way_to_make_an_electric_jet/ | {
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"One could just make a battery powered propeller aircraft, although practical issues would involve the fact batteries are very heavy.",
"No. A jet engine is a specific type of engine that combines fuel and rapid influx of air to create thrust. An electric flight system would just be electric batteries powering propellers or something of that sort. Electricity does not produce thrust without some type of mechanic middleman.",
"Also it gets complicated because of pressure difference when higher up in the atmosphere, hence the reason why it is generally unacceptable to bring lithium ion batteries on board a plan (non carry one).",
"Sorta.\n\nFor most air-breathing propulsion, the idea is to compress air, add energy to it when it's compressed, and then allow it to expand and push you with thrust (for turbines) or push a piston (for piston-cylinder engines). The reason you add energy when the air is compressed is due to the way heat engines are constrained by thermodynamic laws, but the short version is that you want to make the difference between the compressed and expanded (i.e. atmospheric) states as big as possible, in terms of both pressure and temperature (although these are linked closely enough that, you can *kind of* consider them to be the same thing). The larger the differences between the \"hot\" and \"cold\" sides of the reaction, the more efficient your process will be.\n\nNormally, that added energy is by combustion of fuels, but with an electric jet you can (on paper, at least) use an electric current to heat the air directly and then allow it to expand like normal. The problem is that this is kind of difficult to do, and as a result it's not really that efficient because you can't generate that much heat, thus it won't be very efficient.\n\nThe more efficient method is to just use the electrical energy to power a large fan to push you through the air.",
"You need an effective means of producing electricity and battery technology is far too heavy to be practical for aircraft at this time.\n\nSpinning a propeller with an electric motor is easy, it's generating the power to do that that's the problem.\n\nThe US military has experimented with thermonuclear turbines.\n\nUsing a nuclear reactor to super heat the air inside of a jet engine using a molten salt in a closed loop instead of burning fuel.\n\nIn theory you could create a bomber that could stay aloft for decades without needing to refuel.\n\nThe problem of course was that if it ever got shot down or otherwise crashed it would spread radioactive waste all over the place... so it was considered too unsafe to develop.\n\nHowever light-weight fusion reactors that burn Deuterium could allow the concept to make a comeback, but that's far down the road scientifically speaking."
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3d6ekn | why is it considered especially dangerous to pass on the right while driving? | While driving on the highway, I can't see how it would be more dangerous to pass someone in the middle lane while you're in the right lane than making two lane changes to pass on the left.
I understand the left lanes SHOULD be the fastest lanes, but sometimes they aren't. And people on Reddit act like passing them on the right will somehow result in instant death, and I genuinely don't know what is especially dangerous about it.
I understand passing 18 wheelers on the right is probably dangerous, but not normal sized cars. | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/3d6ekn/eli5_why_is_it_considered_especially_dangerous_to/ | {
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"Passing on the right is an unexpected action, and people are less likely to check to their right when changing lanes.\n\nThe right side of a car also has more visual obstacles to hide your unexpected movement.\n\nBeing unpredictable causes accidents. That said, if someone's going slow in the left, I'll pass anyway.",
"The notion seems as though driving on the right is more dangerous whether you're passing or not because driver are less likely to check over their shoulder. Living in California, I see passing from the right all of the time."
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348lc1 | how is it that we can understand most, if not all, forms of broken english? | I if talk this like, understand me you can.
How? | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/348lc1/eli5_how_is_it_that_we_can_understand_most_if_not/ | {
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"Most languages, like English, have a lot of redundancy built-in and our brains are also particularly good at finding patterns (even in novel sets of stimuli) and linking those patterns to pieces of knowledge or expressions that we have been exposed to previously.\n\nIt depends on the language though. Some languages, for example, are extremely picky about word order (i.e. the meaning of a sentence is entirely dependent on the order in which the words are presented). \n\nWith other languages, particularly those with a lot of declensions, word order really doesn't matter. That's because the words themselves are modified (e.g. by appending different suffixes) to change the meaning of the sentence as opposed to changing the order in which the words appear."
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3d22yj | what are calories exactly? how do they know that e.g. 250 ml can of coke has 105 kcal? | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/3d22yj/eli5_what_are_calories_exactly_how_do_they_know/ | {
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"They're a unit of energy. 1 calorie is the amount of energy required to heat up 1 gram of water by 1 degree Celsius at 1 atmosphere of pressure. Food calories are actually kilocalories which = 1000 calories. For Coke, they know how much sugar they put in so they can calculate the kcal from that (1g sugar = ~4 kcal). "
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156geu | why do you need a flu vaccine every year, when other vaccines last for many years? and if it's because the flu virus is adapting, why don't the other vaccine diseases also adapt? | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/156geu/eli5_why_do_you_need_a_flu_vaccine_every_year/ | {
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"You are spot on with the adaptation of the flu virus. The flu virus has a very special way of adapting that other viruses we get vaccinated against tend to lack. \n\n**Analogy for Flu Infection**\n\nLet's just say a cell is a series of doors with a factory in the middle. There is a set of doors to get into the factory, there is a lock that needs to be opened to operate the factory, and their is a special set of doors to get out of the factory. The factory has guards inside who cannot easily detect camouflage. The viral particles have keys to get in, use the factory, and get back out safely, but the locks on the doors are continually switched. The viruses also have camouflage, but once the guards recognize it, it no longer works at all.\n\n\n So basically, an individual viral particles needs to possess the key to get in, the key to operate the machines, the key to get out, and the proper camouflage to be successful. In segmenting it's genome, the flu virus quickly evolves new keys and better camouflage quicker than the factory security can keep up with. Some viruses including certain strains of the flu have already been locked out permanently because they have already been detected by security. These new flu individuals that come along have either a new key in, a new key out, or better camouflage, so they are more successful than the viruses that have already been caught. If a virus comes along that has the best camouflage and keys, it will be very effective at stealing the machinery and spreading. Since this virus is now the best as spreading, it will likely infect more hosts, making it the most prevalent strain in the population. \n\n\nHowever, a security company (scientists) is tired of all the break ins. They developed a way to change the locks before the virus can even get into the factory. The vaccine is basically a way of teaching the factory security what they should look for, and changes the locks on the building to prevent break ins. \n\n**Genome and Mutation**\n\nThe Flu virus has a segmented genome, meaning the single genome (containing all of the genetic information) of the flu virus is broken into many pieces within the infectious capsid (protective protein coat). When 2 variations of the flu virus infect 1 host, you have a phenomenon known as co-infection, which causes [antigenic shift](_URL_1_). 2 viruses in the same host accidentally get their segments switched creating an entirely new viral particle. The flu also just makes simple mistakes when copying itself, which leads to [antigenic drift](_URL_0_). Viral particles are so numerous and careless, they have the ability to mutate and evolve quickly. Most cells have methods of proofreading genetic material after it has been replicated, but this requires special machinery. A virus lacks this ability because it is too small for the genome to code for any of these cellular DNA repair machines. So instead the viral particles just take a simple strategy of replicating quickly and just hoping there are some functional particles after the process (from what I've heard, only about 1/400 particles is actually functional). \n\n**Where does a flu strain come from?**\n\nWhen a human shares a house with cows, pigs, or chickens (poor rural areas) there is an ability of humans and animals to share flu strains. One strain of the flu that has been passing around the chicken population has the potential to infect a cow that is already infected with the cow version of the flu. This co-infection event has the potential to breed a new strain of the flu. This flu can then be passed on to the human, who spreads it among the human population. \n\n**The Vaccine**\n\nScientists can look at the latest flu virus and predict the next path of potential mutation. There are a few killer strains of the flu on their way eventually, but hopefully scientists can predict the strain and produce enough of a vaccine to effectively prevent infection of the majority of the human population. Most of the flu viruses we encounter are not completely new, so our body detects and attacks them. These particles share some sort of resemblance to a previous flu we had, and share some of the genome segments with that flu. The issue arises when a completely new strain evolves that the human population has never encountered, so we have no natural resistance to it. This new flu can evolve by antigenic shift, drift, or both.\n\n**Edit:** For clarity. \n\n",
"Specifically regarding the flu vaccine. The flu is not a single specific virus there are many different strains (varieties). This is because of how fast the virus replicates and transmits between people. (Its like a nasty telephone game). When drug companies develop the flu vaccine every year, they choose a few of the most prevalent strains that occurred the year prior. This gives the vaccinated population the highest chance of obtaining the correct antibodies for the upcoming flu season.\n\nThere is a chance that you could comes across strain G and they chose strains A, B, F, and K. In that case you would still get the flu but you would have antibodies that would be a little more effective than before.\n\nThis is similar to the hpv vaccine. The vaccine only has a few ( ~5 I believe) of the strains of the virus. These are the most common types. Getting the virus only protects you against those strains. You can still be infected with one of the other types. Or if you already have one strain of hpv, they recommend getting the vaccine to prevent you from catching multiple stains.\n\nBack to the flu though. It doesn't adapt to the vaccine. It just mutates and changes. This is because there is a new vaccine every year. Other diseases don't change so quickly. So the antibodies your body creates due to the vaccine are still effective."
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4wfx2i | how do we know that leaked documents are legit? | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/4wfx2i/eli5_how_do_we_know_that_leaked_documents_are/ | {
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"We don't know. As with so much information, if we like/trust the source and the \"leaked\" docs support some narrative we believe in, then we grant legitimacy.",
"Oftentimes you get confirmation from the originating source. For example the NSA confirmed the authenticity of the Snowden docs. "
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3e1rcp | what happens to a person's circulation system when they get fat? with the increased mass, are all the veins/arteries they had when they were thinner just working harder or do they somehow get more? | I was thinking about this today when I found out my super obese friend is in the hospital. I went to elementary school with him and there's not a single time I can remember him not being as round as an apple. I've seen X-rays of fat people and how their bones don't change, they just get warped from the pressure, but I started to wonder what effect getting fat has on the circulatory system. | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/3e1rcp/eli5_what_happens_to_a_persons_circulation_system/ | {
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"Obesity affects the cardiovascular system in multiple ways. Obese individuals have an increased total blood volume to meet the perfusion needs of the increased adipose tissue. Increases are seen in both intracellular and extracellular fluid and are associated with increased stroke volume, although resting heart rate remains unchanged. The increased stroke volume increases resting cardiac output and left ventricular (LV) work. Cardiac and stroke work indices remain normal in normotensive obese individuals. \nThe increase in cardiac output is also accompanied by a decrease in systemic vascular resistance. Because of increased LV workload, oxygen consumption is also increased; the oxygen consumption increases linearly with the increase in body weight.",
"[New blood vessels can grow](_URL_0_) to serve new tissue."
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2uxl0y | the impulse to scream | When scary things happen, people often scream. Is it always a conscious decision? Or is it instinct, part of fight or flight? | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/2uxl0y/eli5_the_impulse_to_scream/ | {
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"It is a way to communicate to others to either help or get out, and screaming also has to do with fight or flight because screaming can scare away a creature or disturb it (i.e. A high pitched scream). It's a deterrent. "
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b3vw5y | how do barcode scanners display the correct barcode number even when the barcode is upside down? | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/b3vw5y/eli5_how_do_barcode_scanners_display_the_correct/ | {
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"The first block of lines and the last block of lines are a set symbol and aren't the same so it's easy to tell if it's reading left to right or right to left. ",
"The barcode is split down the middle, and each half uses a different encoding for the digits. So if the computer sees the left side codes on the right and vice versa, it knows it's upside down and reverses the binary code.",
"Like hieroglyphs, barcodes usually contain one or more symbols that indicates reading direction."
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2yxm1m | why do doctors continue to prescribe antibiotics unnecessarily when they know that science says different? | From what I read, the reason given is usually patient pressure. But I find it hard to believe that that many doctors succumb to patient pressure. So what is it? | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/2yxm1m/eli5_why_do_doctors_continue_to_prescribe/ | {
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"Hospitals are reimbursed partially based on patient satisfaction scores. So it's not that far off that doctors succumb to patient pressure to keep them satisfied.",
"Drug lobbying? See John Oliver.",
"Part of the reason is that it can be hard to differentiate between a bacterial infection, can be treated with antibiotics, or a viral infection, can't be treated with antibiotics. So say a 60 year old woman comes in with some type of eye infection and you aren't 100% sure whether it's viral or bacterial but based on some signs (infects both or just one eyes, producing a discharge or not) you reasonably assume it's viral. Sure you can order all the tests in the world and really rack up the bill for this lady or you could just give her a simple course of antibiotics and have her go on her merry way. It's not that important to find out exactly what's causing the issue unless it begins to cause more of a problem for her or doesn't go away in a couple of days. Sort of like a wager. Could do this simple task and it could help, fantastic, or it could do nothing and you covered you ass incase she comes back in. I'm sure lawyers would love to wonder why you withheld antibiotics from this sweet old lady who went on to develop wide spread infection.\n\nSomewhat tangential but hopefully it got the point across\n\nEdit: added \"you reasonably assume it's viral\""
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eyg9oj | why is it that oreos get soggy in regular milk but not chocolate milk? | I had no idea this would be such a big thing! I will work my way through the comments when can!
My first gold! And platinum! Thank you!
[Experiment! ](_URL_0_) | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/eyg9oj/eli5_why_is_it_that_oreos_get_soggy_in_regular/ | {
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"Chocolate milk has a higher viscosity and a greater solute concentration (mostly corn syrup) than regular milk, resulting in a significantly higher surface tension. It's thicker, stickier stuff. That makes it harder to seep into the cracks and crevices of the cookie. It *will* make a cookie soggy, just slower than plain milk. It will also greatly increase your chances of diabetes, dental carries, and prolonged napping.",
"Is this the same problem I'm experiencing with soy milk!?",
"But what about my almond milk? It does get a little soft but not as fast as regular milk.",
"My customary \"actual ELI5 of the answer I like the most\":\n\nMilk is just plain old milk. To make it chocolate milk, you have to mix chocolate into it. Yeah, stop rolling your eyes at me, I get it. We have to know a lot of things for all of them to make sense, bear with me. *roars like a bear*\n\nThe milk soaks into the Oreo because a cookie has a lot of tiny holes in it. Milk fits into those holes, which makes the cookie wet, which makes it get a little bigger like a sponge, which makes the holes bigger. That's why the cookie falls apart eventually: it stretches too far and there are too many holes.\n\nRight. Chocolate milk.\n\nChocolate doesn't want to mix with milk very well. If you've ever made chocolate milk yourself out of powder or syrup, you probably noticed if you don't drink it very quickly, it sort of starts to turn back into normal milk. There's always a big glob of chocolate at the bottom.\n\nSo the chocolate milk stores sell has chemicals in it that makes chocolate mix with milk a little better. That makes more chocolate stay mixed with the milk a little longer. Some people say this makes the milk a little slimy. That's because it's not milk and chocolate anymore, it's \"milk and chocolate and chemicals\". Anyway.\n\nThis kind of milk is not the same as normal milk, and it doesn't fit in the cookie's holes as well as normal milk. The reason is kind of the same as why oil is slippery or sticky instead of just plain wet like water. It turns out if we say liquids are like a bunch of really tiny marbles, we aren't too wrong about how it works. Except scientists call the little marbles \"molecules\". Grocery store chocolate milk with the chemicals has bigger marbles than normal milk, which is why it doesn't fit in the cookie's holes.\n\nThat's also why anything else that doesn't really get soaked up by the cookie doesn't get soaked up. The marbles are too big.",
"I've looked at a few ingredient lists, and I'm convinced the entire emulsifier thing is a red herring. Emulsifiers help fats and water mix, but the chocolate in chocolate milk is cocoa powder, which is virtually fat free. Most store-bought chocolate milk contains thickeners like guar gum and/or carrageenan, but not any emulsifiers. The thickeners act as stabilizers to help keep the cocoa particles from settling out.\n\nMeanwhile, Nesquik has Soy Lecithin, an emulsifier, as its third ingredient. In this case it's being used as a wetting agent to make it easier to mix in the power without getting lumps. If anything, its power as a wetting agent would make the cookies get soggy faster.\n\nIn short, I think the answer is stabilizers in the chocolate milk increase its viscosity and slow absorption.",
"chocolate milk has emulsifiers to keep it mixed that prevents the oreo from soaking up the milk in the same way. If you use nesquick, it does not have emulsifiers, and should not have a similar milk absorbance to store-bought chocky milk\n\nEDIT: I'm gonna add a few more notes after seeing the comments below.\nnote - I'm from the US so if milk is different in different countries than I apologize, but this is true for the US.\n\n**1: Why doesn't regular milk need emulsified?**\n\nwhen you buy milk from the store its pasteurized and homogenized.\n\nThe pasteurization kills bacteria to keep the milk safe to drink.\n\nThe homogenization takes the milk fat globules and reduces them in size and to be uniformly dispersed through the rest of the milk. Without this process, the milk would separate.\n\n**2: Why and what are emulsifers**\n\nChocolate milk has emulsifiers. These are chemicals that keep the chocolate in the milk evenly mixed and prevent settling of be chocolate. This is why store bought chocolate milk taste better because emulsifiers are fatty and delicious but not healthy so people would rather mix healthier chocolate powder\n\nThe emulsifiers will combine with the milk particles to make bigger combinations of molecules. This is not a chemical reaction, but caused by the polarities of molecules bringing them together and keeping them mixed up well. This bigger molecules will not go into the oreo, as the milk is not easy to get away from its surrounded molecules, and the emulsifiers to do permeate the cookie. These emulsifiers will also raise surface tension which makes it harder for the milk to permeate the cookie.\n\nThe egg used when baking is an emulsifer to get everything to mix together when they normally wouldn't want to.\n\nI don't know how to type it on reddit but this is where you would have like\n\nFe2S03 DOT 6H20, where the molecule has 6 water molecules around it, but they aren't chemically combined.\n\n**3: Why is store bought chocolate milk emulsified when homemade chocolate milk is not**\nPremade chocolate milk needs to be emulsified because its shipped, kept in stores, and not drank all at once at your house.\n\nRegular milk doesn't need emulsified because its homogenized which is a different chemical process that keeps the milk particles suspended.\n\nHomemade chocolate milk will settle if it sits on your counter for a long time. This doesn't matter that much since you just make one cup at a time.\n\n**4: Explain this to a five year old**\nChocolate milk from the store is milk with chocolate. Chocolate and milk are different so if they sit in the same container for a long time, the chocolate will fall to the bottom. That's why homemade chocolate milk will separate into a layer of chocolate at the bottom and milk at the top if you let it sit out for a long time. Store bought chocolate milk needs to stay mixed because people don't want to buy chocolate milk if its separated. Since storebought chocolate milk is manufactured, shipped to a store, held there, purchased, brought home, and drank later, it needs to stay mixed for days or weeks. This can be done using chemicals that keep the chocolate mixed evenly in the milk. These chemicals are tasty, but not healthy, and called emulsifiers. These will keep the chocolate mixed up for a long time. Regular milk doesn't need this because homogenization is an action done to milk to keep it mixed evenly. Homogenization means making the whole gallon uniform."
]
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"https://www.reddit.com/r/dataisbeautiful/comments/ezbbqd/oreos_get_soggy_in_milk_but_not_chocolate_milk_oc/?utm_medium=android_app&utm_source=share"
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5lny4t | why does holding down the power button on devices work even when the system is frozen? | Asking specifically about devices where the power button is not a physical switch, but simply a button. If the operating system isn't responding to other input, why does it respond to holding down the power button? Is there some other hardware/software sitting around waiting for you to hold down the button so it can take over? | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/5lny4t/eli5_why_does_holding_down_the_power_button_on/ | {
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"The hardware power button is probably tied to the system's bios or low-level firmware. This is basically a small separate computer.\n\nTapping the power button passes that event to the main computer's OS, which does whatever it wants to do. But the firmware/BIOS is what's in the position to *actually start or cut the power*, so if you hold the button it's setup to interperet that as a \"pull the plug\" signal.",
"You are thinking of your operating system being frozen. YOu might have windows. This is a layer of 'computer'. \n\nBut you can do a fun experiment. Disconnect your hard drive. Turn on your computer.\n\nYou will then find a whole level of 'computer' that exists beneath your operating system (OS). \n\nIt is running something called firmware. So from that point it can still do lots of things. One of the things it does when you turn your computer on is to start your OS, if it can find it.\n\nSo when your OS is frozen, holding down the power button is just sending a message to your BIOS to shut down. \n\nThat is why you don't usually want to do it when your OS is running. It completely bypasses the OS and doesn't let it do any of the things your OS likes to do when you turn off your computer."
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5w1aup | what biologically is happening inside trees that causes them to bloom after a week of warm weather? | Is there a certain temperature that triggers a process the instant that temperature is reached? Or does it need to be warm for a while before that process starts? What happens if a frost kills that process? | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/5w1aup/eli5_what_biologically_is_happening_inside_trees/ | {
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"you quite answered by yourself:\n\nNormally we have modeled the phenomenon with the [Degree day](_URL_0_) which is somewhat the energy taken in a certain period of time.\n\nOf course the answer is much more complex of this *because* in reality there are many ways plants adopted to control the blooming, depending on where the habitat of the plant is.\n\nsecond question: yes. A frost can kill the buds and this agronomically speaking could be very dangerous.\n\na lesser known fact is that in temperate zones, plant have *usually* evolved a mechanism by which they don't bloom or sprout if they do not get [enough \"cold\"](_URL_1_). This is a defence mechanism exactly against early warm days.\n\n\n\n"
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"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Degree_day",
"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vernalization"
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|
5e2d69 | look down the middle of pascal's triangle. notice that, except for the very top 1, all these numbers are even. why? | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/5e2d69/eli5_look_down_the_middle_of_pascals_triangle/ | {
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"Surely Pascal's triangle is symmetrical so any centre values will be the sum of two identical integers."
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||
croii0 | what is the actual difference between acrylic, watercolor, and oil paints structurally? | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/croii0/eli5_what_is_the_actual_difference_between/ | {
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"As I understand from some googling: Acrylic paints use acrylic polymers to hold the colorant. This can be mixed with water, but ultimately the solvent is the acrylic. Watercolor paints use water to hold the colorant. As such, adding water to a wet canvas re-wets the paint. Oil-based paints are the big bads of the paint world. They use oils to dissolve the colorant, which allows for a very strong and long-lasting coating, but it takes a long time to dry."
]
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[]
] |
||
1nasxn | what is psychosis? | No matter what I read I can't really figure out what it is and what it's like. I am extremely interested, I want to know everything in a way that makes sense to me. | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/1nasxn/eli5_what_is_psychosis/ | {
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"Psycosis is often misinterpreted as an actual mental illness, but in reality it is a symptom. It would be like saying a rash, obviously the rash isnt whats wrong, it has a cause. Psycosis can be caused by pretty much any mental disorder, or even just extreme sleep deprivation. It is basically a state where it is litterly impossible for the affected individual to tell dream from reality. For it to be Psycosis it has to last for a while and be fairly extreme, in many cases people begin to act in irrational ways because \"it is just a dream and dosnt matter.\" (IE jumping off a building in hopes of flying) Like when they killed themselves in Inception except this time they don't wake up.\n\nIf you have any other questions I would be happy to help!"
]
} | [] | [] | [
[]
] |
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