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6kshnu | why do hotel room prices differ between websites? | [deleted] | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/6kshnu/eli5_why_do_hotel_room_prices_differ_between/ | {
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"Some websites work on a commission basis with the owner or another website and company who have a contract with the accommodation owners. The commission percentage ranges differ as well as prices they are allowed to display. Also date ranges selected affect the price and so do some possible \"handling fees\" and such that a website might use to make more than they would purely based on their commission. This gives them worse chances when people research heavily but might net them more on bookings from existing clientele who trust their brand. It's a balancing act and A/B tests are carried out to see how their transactions suffer least while maximizing earnings per bookings.\n\nSource: 3 yrs of experience in the rental industry online (holiday homes)",
"It mostly boils down to sales agreements, commissions, etc.\n\nI'm sure you're familiar with the concept of paying commissions on sales, or finders' fees, etc., right?\n\nOk, so same idea. Hotels agree to sell rooms at $X to Website A, which is say, 20% below the \"standard rate\". Website A turns around and does a markup of say 15-20% on that, and keeps the difference.\n\nSo, a room that's a $100 rack rate would be wholesaler to the website for $80. Website then sells to you, the consumer for say, $96. You saved $4, they made $16.\n\nThe variance comes in the margins between what the website gets the rooms for and what they charge you for them."
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9xw4pz | the "all but" structure in english | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/9xw4pz/eli5_the_all_but_structure_in_english/ | {
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"It doesn't mean \"The city was completely destroyed\".\n\nIt means \"The city was destroyed almost entirely\". Maybe 95% destroyed. There's still the occasional building standing amidst the destruction.",
"I mean... that is essentially what it does mean. With 'all but' meaning something along the lines of almost, it's technically not incorrect to say that the city wasn't destroyed.\n\nIt's pretty widely agreed that it's not the best idiom. All idioms are unintuitive tovadegree. I guess, like most, it just stuck and its usage grew over time to the point where knowledge of its meaning was commonplace. Commonplaceish maybe.\n\nI would say that it does provide one extra piece of information, however, in that it specifies that the process of destruction had almost been completed.\n\n If you were to say that \"x, z and y had happened to the city, but it was not destroyed.\" I'd think the city was in much better shape than on the example you gave!"
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2rh0sh | how do hotels with apparently quite low rates remain open for business? | I live in a suburb city of about 35,000 people or so. We have at least 10-15 major chain hotels - Holiday Inn, Hampton Inn, etc. These never appear to be even half occupied. How do these businesses stay open? Is there just an insane profit margin for those people who do stay? | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/2rh0sh/eli5_how_do_hotels_with_apparently_quite_low/ | {
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"An empty room doesn't necessarily cost the hotel much. A certain number of rooms need to be filled to cover overheads like the cost of staff, but filling more than that is just extra profit.\n\nIt's possible that a few times a year they have a very large number of guests, in those cases the profit in that season offsets any losses in low season.\n\nBeyond this the situation could be that none of the hotels is really profitable, but if any one of them closed then the rest would start making money, but none of the chains wants to be the one to close.",
"You want to average a 60% occupancy for the year (for most places). Usually, if the rest of your costs are under control, you can keep afloat. So one month/season (if you're a resort tow) with a high overall % can help out when you're in the slow season.\n\nThose cheaper brands have a lot less overhead then a more expensive/nicer hotel too. Less staff, less amenities, lower acceptable standards, etc."
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5548re | why do we have to use uranium as fuel in nuclear power plants instead of any other less dangerous material? | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/5548re/eli5_why_do_we_have_to_use_uranium_as_fuel_in/ | {
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"No, thorium is a much safer nuclear fuel.\n\nHowever, the initial developers of nuclear technology were looking for something they could make an atomic bomb from. No investment of equivalent $$ has been made in other applications, because of political considerations.",
"You need a radioactive heavy element in order to make fuel for a fission reactor. Uranium, Thorium, or Plutonium are viable for this, as they're attainable in the quantities needed for power generation. Uranium was used because of its applications in weapons during the cold war. Because of this, less research has been put into Thorium reactors, which could be safer in practice. That said, Uranium Fission Reactors are already incredibly safe, so there isn't a huge push to make them better.",
"Chain reaction.\n\nWhat we want is heat. The heat boils water, which make turbines (a very fancy type of fan) spin around to generate electricity.\n\nWe get heat from uranium by splitting the atom. By forcing atoms to split, they shoot off parts of itself that hits other atoms and so on.\n\n[Image](_URL_1_)\n\nThis is not easily done. Uranium the easiest we've found.\n\nWith other materials it is not possible at all.\n\n\nThe uranium atom core, the nucleus, is unstable. It wants to split, given enough outside force. But changing the nucleus changes the material itself. uranium becomes something else.\n\nYou've probably heard of plutonium. It is the next state of uranium.\n\nOther materials cannot do this. You might have heard about people trying to make gold out of lead. Not possible. However, the final state of Uranium is lead, and will no longer change.\n\nMore in-depth about the topic for the layman can be seen in the documentary [Twisting the Dragon's Tail](_URL_0_)",
"You need a material which is \"fissile\" - this means that the atoms are able to split in a controlled manner. The only naturally occurring material which does that is uranium.\n\nIn fact, only one very rare type of uranium (called uranium-235) can do this. Most uranium (uranium-238) is not fissile. To deal with this, most reactor designs require fuel that is \"enriched\" in uranium-235 (called enriched uranium).\n\nThe uranium itself isn't particularly dangerous. It's quite toxic, like lead (it is a heavy metal after all). However, it's only barely radioactive, allowing most reactor fuel to be hand-made.\n\nThe dangerous part is the \"ash\" that comes from the fission reaction. Reactor fuel is designed so that the uranium is encased in sealed metal tubes, called fuel rods. This traps all the \"ash\" inside the tubes. The problem is that the ash is extremely radioactive and this makes it very dangerous.\n\nNot only that, but the ash actually produces heat, and you cannot stop that heat production. Even if a reactor is shut down, any used fuel rods will continue producing heat, and will need to be cooled. If you don't cool the rods, they will melt and release the ash. This is what happened at Three Mile Island, and Fukushima.\n\n",
"Uranium is the only naturally available fissile element. \n\nYour other option is plutonium produced in nuclear reactors, or transmuting thorium into uranium which is fissile. "
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1ydj5r | why do animals/humans have different visible light spectrums and audible ranges? | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/1ydj5r/eli5why_do_animalshumans_have_different_visible/ | {
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"To clarify what I'm asking, is essentially why don't we all see and hear the same thing? ",
"When it comes to the visible portion of your question, it's because the photoreceptors (rods & cones) in your eyes are set up to basically see Red, Green, and Blue, while other animals might have a fourth type of color receptor, and some may only have two. Having a fourth means you can pick out finer shades of color, and having only two is basically our equivalent of someone who's color blind."
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2ivkxj | why do headlights twinkle in the distance? | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/2ivkxj/eli5_why_do_headlights_twinkle_in_the_distance/ | {
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"The same reason stars twinkle - changes in air density bend light.\n \nThe further away the lights are, the more air there is between you. Over a distance the light refracts (bends) as it passes through moving pockets of air with different density. This results in distortion or twinkling. It's the same reason things look wavy when you look at them through hot air coming off the road, a grill, etc. ",
"Atmospheric distortions. The air is not even in all places, some being hotter, denser, moving faster, etc. This causes light to change in luminosity/position even with the smallest of changes in position (or the air).\n\nInteresting thing to add on, large telescopes are also effected greatly by this distortion. What they do to counteract it to get a better picture is shoot a laser into the sky, and measure how it is distorted. They then make small calibrations to how the telescope is pointed, and how it reads the data it is given in order to get a clearer picture."
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3me5k5 | why is the us stock market doing so poorly? | The Greek crisis has be averted. The Chinese have devalued their currency (something both the IMF and US Treasury Dept. wanted them to do). Granted, their stock market bubble burst (but that is to be expected given the nature of the Chinese stock market). American economic growth is strong and steady. Unemployment has fallen to pre-recession levels (we're almost at full employment). And gas is falling below $2 a gallon (with the money saved on gas purchases providing a huge economic stimulus to consumer purchasing).
So why does the US stock market suck? | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/3me5k5/eli5_why_is_the_us_stock_market_doing_so_poorly/ | {
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"Because the dollar is so strong that it's actively hurting the profits of US-based multinational companies. Because Europe is going to potentially make life incredibly difficult for US-based technology companies. And because all of the things you mention are already baked into the price of US stocks."
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1axkjo | why do sounds like nails on a chalkboard hurt or bother us, whereas sounds like bass are pleasing and give us chills | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/1axkjo/eli5_why_do_sounds_like_nails_on_a_chalkboard/ | {
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"The frequency is dangerously too high, almost enough to burst our eardrums after enough exposure. But our ears won't burst if it is too low (a bass).\n\nTL;DR Nerves telling you that its too high frequency.",
"I can give it a try. Note that I'm not a native English speaking person, I'm not a professional. I'm somewhat of a musician and was interested in acoustics.\n\nWhat you hear, sound, is vibrating air. There are different ways how to make the air vibrate. If you speak or sing its your vocal chords that make the air vibrate. If you play an instrument like the bass, the corpus of the bass is vibrating. Those vibrations get amplified if you use an electrical bass. If you scratch your nails on a chalkboard you make the chalkboard vibrate as well but the outcome is different.\n\nMost sounds (except artificially made ones) are overlapped vibrations. There can be constant vibrations in the overlap, like nice sinuses. Those sounds sound good, because they are constant and have a nice curve (if you would analyse them). \n\nThen there are sounds which consist of non constant vibrations and/or don't make a nice curve, they have edges. Those sounds are unpleasant. \n\nSo if a sound is nice or not is decided by how it is made.\n\nIn addition to that the pitch and the frequency of the sound are important. You don't like high pitched sounds, don't you? That's because of how you hear. Your ear-drum resonates with the vibrations in the air. Based on how fast and how strong it vibrates you get different signals to your brain. You perceive these signals then as different sounds. Your body never likes strong signals, so loud and high sounds are unpleasant for you.\n\nSo if a sound is nice or not is also influenced by how your ear physically analyses the sound.\n\nFinally there is also the aspect of what you associate with the sound and if your body is resonating to the sound.\n\n\n**TL;DR**\nNails on chalkboard make a non constant vibration/wave with a high frequency, your body doesn't like that.\nA Bass makes a nice constant vibration, that's why you like it.\n\n*I hope it helped you*",
"[This might help, read #4](_URL_0_)"
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2m0cpr | why do restaurants serve big portions, which usually result in leftovers? | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/2m0cpr/eli5_why_do_restaurants_serve_big_portions_which/ | {
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"You are served what you think is a serving - not saying it's not, but it's a bit subjective. \n\n\"your bill sir, £60.00\", thank you. \n\n\"WTF it's was only a small portion. \"\n\nIrrelevant that it took xx time to cook, that it took xx time prepare or xx time to select the ingredients. \n\nWhy not give you a slightly bigger portion than you want(ed), you want it bag it, sold man. Otherwise waste, is your domain. ",
"Because this is America. \n\nPeople want a lot for their money and also people want a lot of food. \n\nBy serving a lot of lower quality food for cheaper, restaurants probably make more money than if they served smaller better quality food even if that means a lot of it goes to waste. ",
"I've observed that for many people quantity is the same as quality. In other words, some customers will get very upset if there's not a great heap of food, regardless of whether or not they eat it all. The money lost from lack of business is greater than the money lost in wasted food.",
"Because it is what is expected by the customer and what the customer uses to justify spending money on eating out. Being able to make 2 or 3 meals with your left overs is a major draw for restaurants. \n\nIf you leave it on your plate rather than taking home your left overs it is fully on you for wasting food, not the restaurant. ",
"The cost of the ingredients is only a fraction of the cost at a restaurant. They want to make you happy so you will come back, and increasing the portion size is often cheaper than hiring better staff or getting better real estate or spending the time to cook your food even more carefully."
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1bn5ve | what does the word "campy" mean? (eli5 because the wikipedia article confused me, as they tend to do) | So i looked it up and got the dictionary definition, but i want to be able to use it in conversation confidently. So give it to me in laymans terms please | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/1bn5ve/eli5_what_does_the_word_campy_mean_eli5_because/ | {
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"It is kinda like cheesy. "
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36vu7y | why do first class ticket holders go on planes first? | Most planes I have been on have first class at the front and then economy at the back. Usually when boarding the plane you have to walk through first class in order to get to economy class. People still packing away their carry-ons, finding their seats etc. wastes so much time. Why don't they board economy people first and then first class last (back of the plane to front). | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/36vu7y/eli5_why_do_first_class_ticket_holders_go_on/ | {
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"Most of the boarding process is meant to make people feel special. Why on earth do active military need to board before everyone else? Or people who have the credit card for that airline?\n\nIt's considered a \"perk\" because you can be relaxing in your seat and settled in, rather than waiting in the herd with everyone else. \n\nSouthwest remains the only airline I've flown that does it correctly. \"Everyone on the plane. In this order. Sit wherever you want; we don't care.\" \n\nI have many ideas about how to improve the boarding and unboarding of a plane.",
"Because they are better and more important than you.\n\nLast year, I took a trip to Alaska, and I decided, \"the hell with the cost, for ONCE in my life, I'm going to fly first class.\"\n\nIt was pretty sweet, but is going to make flying Cattle Class that much harder the next time.\n\nIn addition to all the perks, drinks, food, seats that don't violate major human rights treaties, the *attitude* of the airline staff is different. On the way back, I had a layover in Seattle, and the plane for the last leg home was full, so the gate people were going around telling everyone with roller bags that they'd have to check them. \n\nThe guy came to me and looked at my Lowepro carryon-legal camera bag, and said, \"you'll have to check that, sir.\" I pointed out that it wasn't a roller bag. He didn't care. I told him there was no way in eighteen hells that bag was going to be checked. He asked me what was in it, and I told him it was $20,000 of delicate camera gear. He didn't bat an eye. Then he asked me where I was sitting, and when I gave him my first class seat number, it was like a switch had been flipped.\n\n\"Oh, I'm so sorry, sir, please forgive me sir, I meant no offense my lord, \" he groveled as he backed off, bowing all the while. And I was like, \"yeah, that's right, bitch. You step off out my grill.\"\n\nExpensive as hell, but that moment made it worth it.\n",
"I fly FC exclusively and honestly I hate boarding first, at least on planes where the entire plane then walks past you, bumping into your head, etc. I usually wait to get on last.\n\nOn planes where you go two separate directions once on the plane it's much better."
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f7hd5m | how does an rgb led work? | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/f7hd5m/eli5_how_does_an_rgb_led_work/ | {
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"Are you asking how do LEDs work physically to make light or how they create different colors using only RGB color values?"
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3chlqk | how can dye-containing food advertise as "all natural"? | I'm chowing down on some dried kiwi's and noticed that they are labeled and marketed as "All Natural" yet contain dye-additives.
**Dried Kiwi Ingredients**
*Kiwi
*Sugar
*Citric Acid
*Sulfur Dioxide
*Tartrazine
*FD & C Yellow no 5
*Brilliant Blue
*FD & Blue no 1 | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/3chlqk/eli5_how_can_dyecontaining_food_advertise_as_all/ | {
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"How do you know the dyes aren't natural? For that matter, what is \"natural\"? It's an empty buzzword in most cases. ",
"The FDA does not have a formal definition of the word \"natural\" on food labels, which makes it difficult to stop it from being used misleadingly. There have been multiple lawsuits on this issue, though."
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knxji | if possible, how matrices work. | Matrices, as used to (for example) rotate or skew a picture.
I sort of know what they are and what they do (clarification would be useful though), but I don't know *how* they work. | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/knxji/eli5_if_possible_how_matrices_work/ | {
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"First you have to know what a vector is: a list of numbers. Vectors can be used to describe locations. The first number tells you how far to the left (negative) or right (postive). And the second number tells you have far forward (positive) or backward (negative).\n\nNow, a picture can be described in terms of vectors. For every point/pixel, you have a vector for its location. So you have a bunch of vectors and for every vector you have a color.\n\nA matrix is an instruction that tells you how to change an old vector into a new vector.\n\nYou can take your matrix and apply it to every vector of the picture. The matrix will give you a new vector, a new location. If you move the color with the vector, you'll get a new picture.",
"Matrices can be used to **describe** transformations. A transformation being a rotation, skew, scale, etc.\n\nLet me give you an example usage of matrices on a 2D plane. Say you have a few points on this plane, for example: (0,3) (2,1) (4,2) You want to rotate these points 90 degrees clockwise, about the origin (0,0)\n\nYou would add two points to your plane (let's call them I and J), with the coordinates: (0,1) (1,0) respectively.\n\nNow transform these points I and J (and these points only) using the transformation I described above. Let's called these new points I' and J': (-1,0) (0,1)\n\nPut these into a matrix with 2 rows, 2 columns:\n\nI'^x J'^x\n\nI'^y J'^y\n\nYou end up with the following matrix:\n\n-1 0\n\n0 1\n\nWe have now described the transformation above with a 2x2 matrix. Now we can take **any point** (x,y) and use the matrix to easily find it's new point (x',y'). We will use the values in the top row of the matrix as the co-efficients for the new x':\n\n-1x + 0y = -1x\n\nAnd the same with the bottom row to find the new y':\n\n0x + 1y = 1y\n\nTherefore if we have the point (5,2), we find x' by:\n\nx' = -1x + 0y = -1(5) + 0(2) = -5\n\nAnd the same with y':\n\ny' = 0x + 1y = 0(5) + 1(2) = 2\n\nI hope this clarifies using matrices for simple 2D transformations!",
"First you have to know what a vector is: a list of numbers. Vectors can be used to describe locations. The first number tells you how far to the left (negative) or right (postive). And the second number tells you have far forward (positive) or backward (negative).\n\nNow, a picture can be described in terms of vectors. For every point/pixel, you have a vector for its location. So you have a bunch of vectors and for every vector you have a color.\n\nA matrix is an instruction that tells you how to change an old vector into a new vector.\n\nYou can take your matrix and apply it to every vector of the picture. The matrix will give you a new vector, a new location. If you move the color with the vector, you'll get a new picture.",
"Matrices can be used to **describe** transformations. A transformation being a rotation, skew, scale, etc.\n\nLet me give you an example usage of matrices on a 2D plane. Say you have a few points on this plane, for example: (0,3) (2,1) (4,2) You want to rotate these points 90 degrees clockwise, about the origin (0,0)\n\nYou would add two points to your plane (let's call them I and J), with the coordinates: (0,1) (1,0) respectively.\n\nNow transform these points I and J (and these points only) using the transformation I described above. Let's called these new points I' and J': (-1,0) (0,1)\n\nPut these into a matrix with 2 rows, 2 columns:\n\nI'^x J'^x\n\nI'^y J'^y\n\nYou end up with the following matrix:\n\n-1 0\n\n0 1\n\nWe have now described the transformation above with a 2x2 matrix. Now we can take **any point** (x,y) and use the matrix to easily find it's new point (x',y'). We will use the values in the top row of the matrix as the co-efficients for the new x':\n\n-1x + 0y = -1x\n\nAnd the same with the bottom row to find the new y':\n\n0x + 1y = 1y\n\nTherefore if we have the point (5,2), we find x' by:\n\nx' = -1x + 0y = -1(5) + 0(2) = -5\n\nAnd the same with y':\n\ny' = 0x + 1y = 0(5) + 1(2) = 2\n\nI hope this clarifies using matrices for simple 2D transformations!"
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3iysap | americans and credit | This is something really weird to me as a non-American: the fact that Americans seem to be obsessed with credit: tips on how to build good credit, getting a free credit score, things that fuck up your credit etc. etc.
If I have to guess, this implies that somewhere you have a registered individual numerical score that shows how reliable you are when it comes to paying your bills? And by not paying your bills that number gets worse?
Could somebody explain the basics of this system to me and where it comes from? We don't have anything like this where I'm from. | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/3iysap/eli5_americans_and_credit/ | {
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"Here's the thing, our economy is, for better or worse, based around credit. We have three large companies that create a database that tracks our financial transactions to determine our creditworthiness.\n\nFor example, if you pay your water bill this month, you get +1 point. Fail to do so and you get -3 points. You lose 3 points every time you request just your credit score, and -25 points for a full credit report.\n\nThe point of this system is to create an empirical method of tracking how fiscally responsible you are. The more responsible, the less risky it is to, for example, loan you $200,000 to buy a house.\n\nThe benefit of a high credit score is that you often get lower interest rates, since you're more likely to pay them back, they don't have to make so much off of you to justify the loan. A great example is my cousin, who has excellent credit. He bought a new truck last year and was only require to pay 0.3% interest per year, and was offered a budget of up to $100,000.\n\nPro Tip:\n\nGet a low budget credit card and use it to pay for something small, like lunch at the cafeteria every day. At the end of each month, pay off this card completely, reducing your balance to 0. Each time you reduce your balance owed to 0, you get bonus points in addition to the point you get for paying a bill on time.",
"I am one of a minority of American breadwinners that live without a credit card. I have a debit card and use checks or cash. While I'm proud to live free of credit card debt, this decision has made it difficult to obtain loans because I don't have a lot of credit history or hold credit debt. Even though I did generate some credit through years of timely payments on a personal loan and a car loan (which in turn were difficult to get and did not have great interest rates), I almost could not buy my house a couple years ago despite the relatively low cost of the house and my relatively good income.\n\nI ended up having to add my name to one of my father's credit cards and accrue some \"debt\", which boosted my credit score within a week or so up from \"below average\" to \"very good\" and suddenly banks were willing to give me a loan for the house.\n\nI'm not happy about it, and should probably join the ranks of the credit-card wielders but I hate the idea of having credit card debt and then paying banks further to maintain that debt. It all seems so backwards to me...",
"I've also been greatly confused by this. The rest of the world (afaik) work from the idea that having to use credit means you're not able to keep afloat on your own. At least to me, credit was a practicality before online transactions become trivial.\n\nFrom what I understand the credit system has ended up being just as much about how valuable you are as a customer as how likely you are to pay up. Anyone able to comment on this?",
"It used to be common for a middle class family, say in the 50's or 60's, to own a home and a car. As the price of living increased, due to several factors, the middle class went in debt to maintain their status. People aren't generally good at cutting back, especially given the option not to have to. This sort of leads to where we are now."
]
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24zmqv | why don't we hear more about child prodigies as they get older? | I've seen a ton of child prodigies who were good at what they were - but once they're older, we don't really hear much about them. Do they stop caring/being involved? | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/24zmqv/eli5_why_dont_we_hear_more_about_child_prodigies/ | {
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"They become regular, extremely talented adult people.",
"I think this question demonstrates a misunderstanding of what a \"prodigy\" actually is. A prodigy is somebody who is good at something unusually early. It's not some blanket term for genius. When it's no longer early, you're no longer a prodigy. "
]
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57bu1o | why is it better to have more but smaller cylinders in an engine, rather than fewer larger ones? | Is it just so the engine can rev higher or are there other benefits? It seems to me that having fewer, larger cylinders would make the engine less complex (fewer moving parts), more reliable and more torquey. I'm wondering why car makers don't make like a large displacement 4cyl engine, like 5L or something. | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/57bu1o/eli5_why_is_it_better_to_have_more_but_smaller/ | {
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"\nThe stroke (the length of the piston movement) limits the effective rotation speed of the engine: The rate at which air flows into the cylinder depends on the crossection of the valves. If you increase the stroke length, you increase the size of the cylinder, and with it the amount of air that needs to flow in it - but since you can't just increase valve size unless you also increase the bore (cylinder diameter), the stream of air flowing into the cylinder remains constant. So it takes more time to fill a larger cylinder with air, which limits how fast the engine can turn. So for a very large single cylinder engine, you'd either have to reduce RPM, which reduces power output, or use very flat cylinders, which is detrimental to clean and efficient combustion.\n\nIn addition to that, only diesel engines work with very large cylinders, since combustion proceeds evenly within the combustion chamber. In gas engines, combustion starts at the spark plug and then moves outside - and this only works smoothly with small cylinders.\n\nWhat also factors into this is the rather compact build of inline or v engines, which are approximately cuboid. A single cylinder engine has a very odd shape, which would take up a lot of space under the hood.\n\n"
]
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4y6z8u | ehat are those wavy lines you can see above the ground when it's hot? | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/4y6z8u/eli5_ehat_are_those_wavy_lines_you_can_see_above/ | {
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"The surface heats up a lot, which heats a small layer of air as well. That makes that the different layers of air have a different density, which means that the air diffracted differently"
]
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[]
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||
9fz22r | if a storm is fed by sea water, how does the resulting rainfall come down as fresh water? what happens to the salt? | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/9fz22r/eli5_if_a_storm_is_fed_by_sea_water_how_does_the/ | {
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"The sun heats the water. Water vaporizes into the air. The salt doesn’t vaporize but stays in the sea. \n\nThe water damp forms clouds and from the cloud it rains down again. ",
"The boiling point for salt is much higher than water so it does not evaporate easily like water does. Storms are formed of evaporated sea water, which is just water.\n\nA really interesting question by the way is if rivers are constantly flowing salt into the ocean (which they are) and evaporation doesn't remove salt (which it does not) why doesn't the ocean become more salty over time?"
]
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1mfxhx | if space is made out of vacuum, how come satellites, like voyager, are able to capture sound? | Serious question, not in any way shape or form trying to prove some kind of "government conspiracy", just curios. | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/1mfxhx/eli5_if_space_is_made_out_of_vacuum_how_come/ | {
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"As far as this shows, it doesn't. \r\r_URL_0_",
"They don't capture sound. The instruments that still function measure radiation. You can convert that data into sound waves; its analogus to displaying the data on a graph, it's just another way of looking at it, but doing so isn't much more than a novelty for a press release.",
"Space is not a true vacuum, their is actually quite a bit of shit in space.\n\nBut you can only detect sound whilst you are in a gas field.\n\nHere is a high altitude video with sound: _URL_0_",
"Since you're referring to the Voyager Plasma Wave experiment I'll explain about that.\n\nBut first we have to make a small detour into how a microphone here on earth works: When you listen to a recording of sound that's been created using some electronic process, something did capture an electrical signal. That something is a microphone. In a microphone you have a thin sheet of material that gets moved by waves of sound pressure, called the diaphragm. Attached to that diaphragm is either a magnet or some electrically charged foil. Either way, the movement of the magnet or the electrically charged foil creates a changing electromagnetic field, which can be picked up by a kind of antenna (a magnetic coil, or a capacitor's plate, which are in fact antennas). After amplifying the signal it can be recorded and/or transmitted. Say you had a really, really sensitive radio and a very good antenna, then you could pick up the signal from a microphone that's not even plugged into anything and that has no electronics whatsoever built in at all.\n\nNow what the Voyager Plasma Experiment does is, it replaces the electrically charged diaphragm in a microphone with electrically charged gas (=plasma). Even if space is mostly empty, on large scales there's still quite an amount of mass, which effectively is a very low density gas. And like in every gas there can be sound waves. The pressure is far to small to be detected by a classical microphone. But you can detect the vibrations (=sound) in charged gas, by detecting the changes in the electrical field the gas itself creates, which is effectively radio and Voyager a radio sensitive enough to pick up the signal from the microphone without a \"wired\" connection. So the plasma itself is the microphone, from which Voyager \"just\" picks up the signal from.\n\nI think that this is really cool.",
"Just going to add that the Voyagers probes are just that - probes. They're not satellites. A satellite is a satellite by virtue of being in orbit, which the Voyagers are not."
]
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"http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Voyager_1#Scientific_instruments"
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"https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2aCOyOvOw5c"
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ex23l8 | how can the us national debt be over $23 trillion if that much money doesn’t even exist in the world? | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/ex23l8/eli5_how_can_the_us_national_debt_be_over_23/ | {
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"The same way a person can own more property (house, car, etc.) than money they have ever made in their life.",
"There is ways more than $23 trillion in the world. That number might be the amount of physical money that exists (cash), but doesn't include money that exists on record.",
"Person A lends a coin to person B. \n\nPerson B then lends that same coin to person C. \n\nPersons B and C now have a combined debt of 2 coins from borrowing the same coin.",
"Most \"money\" is just numbers on computers or written down on ledgers, not actual physical currency.",
"We have an inflationary monetary system. Meaning we increase the total amount year by year. \n\nThat money is created through debt, basically someone who wants more money than they have asks for it. That money is created and added to the total supply. \n\n Because that (and all) money is created by debt, all money in the world is owed as debt by someone to someone else. \n\nDebt of course has fees and interest to be paid on top of it, meaning that even more money is owed than what is borrowed.\n\nIn summary; money is made by debt, loans require interest. Therefore there is always more debt than money.\n\nIf everyone tried to pay off all their loans (people, business and governments) there would not be enough money in the world to do it.",
"The Federal Reserve loans money to the government at interest. That number is the total amount owed by the United States government to the Federal Reserve. (Btw, your federal income tax pays the interest)",
"That much money does exist in the world. Money can take many forms and there is way more than $23 trillion.",
"There's different types of money. But talking about debt specifically, a lot of the world's money is created as debt. Depending what you think of as money then actually most of the world's money is created that way.\n\nThis happens through something called the Money Multiplier Effect. The money multiplier works like this. Say I have $100 and I put it in the bank. The bank then makes money by loaning out some of that money to other people. So say you come along and ask for a $50 loan and the bank says sure and lends you my $50. But then say you buy something off me for $50. I then put my $50 in the bank. I now have $150 in the bank and the total amount of money in the world has increased from $100 to $150. It's basically been created out of nothing by debt. And now say someone else comes along and asks to borrow $100, and the bank can lend them $100 because they have my $150 in the bank. And then if they use that to buy something off me for $100 then now I have $250 in the bank. And this can go on indefinitely, and leads to the creation, out of thin air, of almost all money. And it works fine provided we don't all ask for our money back from the bank at the same time. When we do that creates a run on the bank and the bank collapses. But as long as everyone has confidence that the bank does have at least some real actual money to cover the number of people who might want their money back in any given day then the system can keep on going.\n\nMoney that's created in this sense, out of debt through the money multiplier, is called M1. So in my example above there's $250 in the world, $100 of it is real money and $150 of it is M1.\n\nAnyway [here's how much money there is in the world](_URL_0_)\n\n- Narrow money ie notes, coins, savings accounts, gold etc... $37 trillion\n- Broad money ie stocks shares and bonds: $90 trillion\n- M1: $215 trillion\n- the notional value of real estates, land, assets, and all the actual \"stuff\" in the world, if we were somehow able to sell it all to a passing alien and get a good price for it: $217 trillion\n- derivatives. Derivatives are weird. They're essentially the notional value contained within all contracts, promises, and legal instruments in the world. As well as the market of exotic financial instruments that are used to gamble on these notional values, insure against breach of contract, trade risk against other risk, buy now pay later, pay now buy later at a guaranteed price etc... If you want to google these terms: futures, options, securities, and forward contracts are all forms of derivatives. And they're just the most normal ones. The total notional value of the derivatives ecosystem is incredibly hard to quantify but is somewhere in between $500 trillion and $1.2 quadrillion\n\nSo the US national debt is 67% of the real money in the world, but because they're not needing to repay it (and indeed repaying it would be a disaster for the world because it would basically vanish 67% of all money out of existence) it doesn't matter what percentage of real money it is. And it's only a tiny percentage of money in a broader sense: somewhere in between 8% and 1% of broad money depending on if you count derivatives etc..."
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26jz36 | why are we told to shut down the usb- connection before removing the cable/device? | What's the worst that can happen? | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/26jz36/eli5_why_are_we_told_to_shut_down_the_usb/ | {
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"You could lose everything on the drive. Basically a USB is reading and writing data to and from the computer, if you pull the device while it's writing a file it'll corrupt the file and can possibly corrupt the whole drive (unlikely but not impossible) I for example was running a game off of an external harddrive and someone unplugged it while I was playing, this corrupted some part of the game requiring a full reinstall. Not replace my game files with say....your thesis and you'll see the risk.",
"Depends on a couple of details..\n\nAs already said, if it's writing, you will loose that file (and can corrupt the drive), but even if it's not currently writing files can still become corrupt.\n\nIn some cases the operating system can tell you that a file has been completely writen, but some part can be still waiting in memory until more writing arrives or you stop the connection. This is done because writing is slow so the computer sometimes wait for more information to make the process worthwhile. So you need to shutdown the connection to make sure any pending write is actually done."
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6u9biy | why do we want to be entertained, can't we settle with a boring life? | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/6u9biy/eli5_why_do_we_want_to_be_entertained_cant_we/ | {
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"text": [
"Entertainment stimulates the brain. Our mind favors constant stimulation which is why being bored is... bad."
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82w4e1 | do stronger muscles expend the same amount of energy to do the same amount of work? | If someone has bigger / stronger muscles than I do, and we both lift the same heavy weight, they will be able to do so more easily than I, apparently exerting less effort, but are we both actually expending the same amount of energy? And how does that work?! | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/82w4e1/eli5_do_stronger_muscles_expend_the_same_amount/ | {
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"The energy required to move the same weight is the same regardless of muscle strength.\nStrength of the muscle only affected the maximum force it can deliver because stronger muscle can store more energy.\n\nThink of muscle similar to a car engine. We can have a Chevrolet Spark (weak muscle) vs Silverado (strong muscle). Both have engines, burning fuel to move things around.\n\nNow, imagine trying to pull a big heavy rock with a rope tied to the Chevy Spark and compared it to when pulling the same rock using Silverado. You may noticed that the spark (smaller engine, weaker muscle) seems to struggle more then the bigger engine, stronger Silverado.\n\nTldr: energy exerted to lift the same weight is the same regardless of muscle strength. Muscle strength only affected the maximum energy can be stored or delivered.\n\nEdit: spelling",
"the bigger muscle has it easier because of two things.\n\nFirst is that the bigger muscle is bigger because it has more muscle fibers. Each muscle fiber can lift a certain amount without struggling, and someone with 2 muscle fibers can easily lift twice as much weight(ish, they also have to lift themselves, you can figure it out with calculus) as someone with only 1.\n\nSecond is that people who work out more will also have more efficient cardiovascular systems, which means the body can get the energy it needs to the places that need it faster and with less waste on the journey, allowing the body to power all those extra fibers at once. (you can actually tell people who don't train their cardio from those that do, because people that don't train cardio can have a lot of muscle mass and then not be able to use half of it after like 30 seconds of work because they can't get enough energy stored in the muscles to keep going)",
"It takes the same energy to move the weight, but strong people can be more efficient, for certain tasks. We have three energy systems in the muscle. The aerobic system uses glucose + oxygen, and it can power you through an entire marathon. The anaerobic system doesn't require oxygen, but it is much less efficient, it can power you through a set of eight squats. The glycolytic system is in between. \n\nImagine a task that is challenging for an untrained person but easy for an athlete- say 10 200 pound dead lifts. The athlete's muscles can accomplish this task using mostly glucose and oxygen, he does it, walks away, and is fine. The untrained person does it, and feels exhausted, as his muscles dump lactic acid into the blood stream that the liver has to turn back into lactate. *The untrained person's liver burns energy for hours after the lift to recover* . This is called [excess post exercise oxygen consumption](_URL_0_) The amount of energy applied to the barbell is identical, but the untrained person is forced to draw upon metabolically inefficient pathways to get that energy."
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2zhw71 | why is child abuse such a huge problem among politicians in the uk, what's the backstory? | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/2zhw71/eli5why_is_child_abuse_such_a_huge_problem_among/ | {
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"It has been said that high up politicians have been abusing children for 30 years, using their status as a way to get away with it. The children didn't go to the police out of fear, and when they did, the police didn't believe them. In fact, if the Jimmy Savile scandal didn't bring child abuse into the mainstream media, they may of gotten away with it for longer. tl;dr: The reason its a huge problem is because of how high ranking the MP's were and how long they went undiscovered. ",
"We don't have much of a priesthood over here (Thanks Henry!) and they have to work somewhere in a position of trust/power"
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5bsyei | how are space agencies sure they are not contaminating mars/themoon, and why do they care? | [deleted] | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/5bsyei/eli5_how_are_space_agencies_sure_they_are_not/ | {
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"Well, they use very rigorous clean room techniques to minimize the amount of biological contamination that is on our probes. Beyond that, the harshness of the environment is likely to whittle down at least some of what small amount they miss. But they are not sure they are not contaminating the objects, they probably miss *some* stuff. Not that either environment is especially conducive to life as we know it. The Moon especially, although some things may be able to eek out at least survival on Mars, if not prosperity.\n\nThey care because we don't want to substantially alter the environment we are studying before we study it, and just in case there could *be* anything alive there, it'd be a shame to accidentally destroy it with competition. Additionally, if we go to all the work to find life and then bring samples back to Earth, it'd be a real bummer if by the time they got here it as just good ole tardigrades or something of the sort.\n\n",
"All space-faring nations [have signed a treaty](_URL_0_) agreeing to avoid cross-contamination. This is in relation to the study of extraterrestrial life - we don't want to destroy whatever evidence there may be. \n\nAs such, there are several levels of protection depending on how likely there is to be life. ([NASA link](_URL_1_). Their SSL certificate is bad, you may need to click through a warning screen.)\n\n**Category 1**: Missions to bodies we figure have nothing to do with life. This covers missions to boring asteroids, the sun, and Io. No protections.\n\n**Category 2**: Missions to bodies which might have something to do with the chemical origins of life, but we figure there's no chance terrestrial life could survive. This covers Callisto, Venus, more interesting asteroids and small Kuiper belt objects. This also includes a number of provisional bodies, where we think we might find places life could survive if we studied further: Pluto/Charon, Ganymede, Titan, Triton, large Kuiper belt objects. For this category, you just need documentation.\n\n**Category 3/4**: Missions to bodies where there's a pretty good chance terrestrial life could survive. This is Mars, Europa, and Enceladus. Category 3 is for flybys/orbiters, category 4 for landers. Category 3 requires extensive paperwork, cleanroom construction, trajectory biasing (i.e. choosing a course that won't eventually collide with anything) and possible \"bioburden reduction\" - probably ultraviolet sterilization or gamma irradiation. Category 4 requires yet more paperwork, cleanroom construction, bioburden reduction, and possible bioshields (presumably, antimicrobial surfaces. Copper alloys, for instance, are antimicrobial). Both categories also require microbial assays (that is, you swab it and see what grows in a petri dish). There are further subcategories for Mars rover missions.\n\n**Category 5**: Missions from a body back to Earth - we don't want to import space-flu either. Currently, Mars, Europa, and Enceladus are considered Category 5 Restricted - strict quarantine procedures for all samples and equipment, until it's all been sterilized or carefully examined. Everything else is Category 5 unrestricted, so no protections required.\n\nThe reasoning for all this is to preserve evidence for future generations who may have better techniques. \n\nBy way of analogy -- We'll never know much about the city of Troy, because of crappy archaeology techniques. Nine cities were built on the site, one on top of the other. [Heinrich Schliemann](_URL_2_) figured that the famous Troy, the one from the *Iliad*, must be on the bottom, right?\n\nSo he dug through the top eight cities without cataloguing anything. The Troy he was looking for was probably the sixth or seventh city. It's because of incidents like this that modern archaeologists make a practice of leaving half a site unexcavated, for future archaeologists with better techniques."
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7070rv | how do the cones in our eyes detect specific wavelengths of light and why can't we just add more cones to expand our internal color viewing range? | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/7070rv/eli5_how_do_the_cones_in_our_eyes_detect_specific/ | {
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"The specific difference is in the proteins called \"photopsins\" within the cone cells. These three different kinds of proteins are sensitive to different wavelengths of light.\n\nWe can't \"add more cones\" because we don't have the ability to synthesize living cells of arbitrary makeup, and even if we could there is no guarantee our brains would know what to do with them.",
"I believe that about 3% of women are born with a fourth cone (purple) \nno men that i know of though",
"The specific difference is in the proteins called \"photopsins\" within the cone cells. These three different kinds of proteins are sensitive to different wavelengths of light.\n\nWe can't \"add more cones\" because we don't have the ability to synthesize living cells of arbitrary makeup, and even if we could there is no guarantee our brains would know what to do with them.",
"I believe that about 3% of women are born with a fourth cone (purple) \nno men that i know of though"
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2ur7xg | why do webpages sometimes load incorrectly with mostly text on a white background, and a simple refresh magically fixes the problem? | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/2ur7xg/eli5_why_do_webpages_sometimes_load_incorrectly/ | {
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"The CSS got messed up. CSS basically tells your browser how to show the content, and when it's missing you get the default font and all sorts of glitches.\n\nF5 starts from a clean slate so whatever it was which resulted inn the CSS not getting sent properly has another chance of working.",
"Your browser fetches the page (HTML) and how to present it (CSS) from two different requests (plus nearly one request for each image).\n\nWhat you describe is the sign that the browser fetched the page, but failed to fetch the CSS. This mostly happens because the site is overloaded and randomly fails to send resources, in this case the CSS. That can happen for a wide number of reasons, depending on the site and its internal working.\n"
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1ugn4h | why don't we get goosebumps on our face? | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/1ugn4h/eli5_why_dont_we_get_goosebumps_on_our_face/ | {
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"They do appear on the face of some people. ",
"Goosebumps appear when the Erector Pilli muscle (very close to the hair follicles) contracts. These muscles are slightly larger in Vellus hair (the fine hair that covers our bodies save for palms and soles) follicles than facial hair follicles. ",
"Piloerection, or goose bumps, are an involuntary reaction to two types of stimuli: cold temperatures or extreme emotions, particularly fear. The fear reaction is actually present in many mammals, with the purpose being to straighten out the skin hair to make the animal seem larger and more imposing to a predator. A good example would be porcupines raising their quills. \nFor the most part, humans only get goose bumps on their body, and not their face, because of the differences in facial and body hair and that raising the facial hair wouldn't affect appearance much, at least in terms of intimidation. However, people have been know to get goose bumps on their face, though it is kinda rare. \nGoose bumps are also a reaction to cold temperatures, since the raised hair would help insulate someone, though this doesn't apply much nowadays since most people don't have incredibly large amounts of body hair.",
"Goosebumps are what's left of our evolutionary reaction to cold and fear. If we still had hair the process of goosebumps would puff up our fur making us warmer and appear larger. Since historically primates do not have much hair on their face there are no follicles to raise. ",
"ELI5: Why do we call them goosebumps?",
"Because, acne has a reservation. ",
"Huh? I *DO* get goosebumps on my face.... Look in the mirror the next time you get goosebumps on your arms/legs and watch the side of your cheeks will get a kind of mottled goosebumpy look. They aren't as dramatic as the ones on my arms. I think people just never notice it because you usually aren't by a mirror when you get them. I cover my face with my hands when I get them because they make my face look pretty weird... ",
"Because that would make bearded people look very funny at concerts and such.",
"Wait, now I feel really weird, because I DO get goosebumps on my face...",
"EXCELLENT QUESTION I HAVE NEVER CONSIDERED. ",
"Well you can, but you'll have difficulty reading from that close.",
"I get goosebumps on my face, not as bad as my arms, but when I get goosebumps the hair on my face stands up, I can feel it.",
"I get goosebumps on my face... IM A MONSTER!!!!!!",
"I feel like this should have been a r/shittyaskscience post.",
"Goosebumps are a vestigial function left over from when we had much more hair covering our bodies. When we are frightened or cold, they will reappear.\n\nThe original function of goosebumps was to make the hair stand on end (i.e. to make ourselves appear bigger when frightened, to trap in body heat when cold).\n\nLike most primates, we've never had much hair on our faces, so goosebumps there would serve no purpose.",
"Because when you get scared you need your face to scream"
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1la5c8 | why does engine size seem to have no bearing on horsepower? what makes one engine so much more powerful than another? | In European sports cars, you can have comparatively small (2-4 litre) engines that produce pretty huge levels of horsepower, and comparatively enormous (6-8 litre) engines in American muscle cars that only produce the same amount. Why is that?
I get that power generally increases with more cylinders, but A) why doesn't engine size matter that much; and B) why aren't all engines made as small as possible if it doesn't? | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/1la5c8/eli5_why_does_engine_size_seem_to_have_no_bearing/ | {
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"Torque. It's a measure of how hard the engine can twist the driveshaft, which then goes through the gearing and wheels. Sportscars don't need much torque, but big trucks and SUVs do in order to accelerate heavy loads.",
"Horsepower is a function of torque -- meaning, horsepower is calculated from how much torque an engine produces. The formula is:\n\nHorsepower = (Torque * RPM) / 5252\n\nSo? So this means that through some combination of engineering/design, you can make smaller engines perform better than larger ones -- but they all are calculated by the same equation. In other words, if one engine performs better than another, it can be for a variety of reasons, not all of them related to size.\n\nPicture this -- while a large man (not specifically \"fat,\" merely large) might be assumed to have a lot of strength, that's not guaranteed, right? If the big guy never works out, he could easily be weaker than a smaller man who works out all the time. Right? If the smaller guy has more developed muscle, they will be stronger. \n\nWell, in a lot of parallel ways, there's been advancement over the years on bettering engine technologies to produce more power from less displacement (smaller engines). Things like adjustable timing (e.g. VTEC), or high compression, or even forced induction (e.g. super chargers/turbo chargers) have all led to smaller engines putting out more and more power than they used to. \n\nSome of this starts to bleed over into your other question:\n\n > comparatively enormous (6-8 litre) engines in American muscle cars\n\nThings like oil/gas availability can dictate what direction research and design goes. If oil/gas is scarce, you're going to look to develop ways to get more power out of an engine without necessarily making it huge because making it huge uses a lot of gas. \n\nOn the other hand, if gas is plentiful (at the time anyway) it's pretty easy to just say \"well lets build a bigger engine for more power.\" \n\nNow this has changed over time -- lots of american car companies are putting out some really neat small engines (like Ford's eco boost series), but on the flip side it's pretty cool what comes out when you put some of the aforementioned technologies on a big V8, like the Ford Coyote engine. \n\n"
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38mepz | if i wanted to start my own internet company, where would i get my internet from? | SO I understand that at CERN Labs the first internet was created, but when the internet became more for public use, and ISP were created, where do they get their internet from? How do they hook their servers to other servers? Guess this is more than one question now. | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/38mepz/eli5if_i_wanted_to_start_my_own_internet_company/ | {
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"The ISPs all hook up to each other. The smaller ISP pays the bigger ISPs. The list of these connections is public record- [here](_URL_0_) is the record for one of Comcast's networks. You can see that they're hooked up to CenturyLink (which used to be Qwest Communications), Verizon, T-Mobile (or at least their parent company, Deutsche Telekom), and a couple other Comcast-run networks). \n\nThe Internet has a series of rules that make it so computer's on any one ISP's network can talk to a computer on any other ISP's network. There is no \"Internet\" that ISPs plug into, since the Internet is just made up of all the computers and all the ISPs connected together.",
"You interconnect with other ISPs which each have their own network of servers and users/subscribers.\n\nThis interconnection is called a peering arrangement. \n\nISPs that operate in the same country/region and are a similar size will often enter into settlement-free peering arrangements where they interconnect and agree to exchange traffic freely between each other's networks.\n\nISPs that are very different in size will sometimes enter into a settlement-based peering arrangement where the smaller ISP pays the larger ISP for the interconnection and the rights to exchange traffic with that other ISP's network. \n\nThis type of peering arrangement is also common for major Content Delivery Networks and some content providers (e.g. Netflix), although there is an effort to make this type of arrangement illegal because it can be argued that it goes against the principles of net neutrality by essentially allowing paid prioritization (i.e. whereby an ISP requests payment from a content provider in exchange for a more direct / less congested connection to their users).\n\nWhen two ISP networks do not interconnect directly via peering, they connect to each-other indirectly via an IP Transit provider or 'backbone' network. A transit provider is a major global ISP that interconnects with many hundreds of other ISPs all around the world. They will carry traffic to/from any of these ISPs' networks and your networks for a fee (this is essentially a settlement-based peering arrangement, except you gain access to many ISP networks, not just one).\n\nExamples of major IP Transit providers include: Cogent, Level 3, Hurricane Electric, TATA, GTT, etc.\n\nISPs and transit providers interconnect at carrier-neutral internet exchange or switching facilities which are located all over the world (there's at least one in every major city). Some of these facilities also offer a shared switching fabric so instead of having to install individual connections to each network you want to peer with, you instead setup one connection to the shared fabric and then negotiate all the peering connections you want to form through that fabric.",
" > at CERN Labs the first internet was created\n\nActually, the [internet](_URL_1_) was created at [DARPA](_URL_0_) in the 60s-80s.. [The web](_URL_3_) was invented at [CERN](_URL_2_) in 1990.\n\n > ISP were created, where do they get their internet from?\n\nThe internet is not a \"thing\", it is a concept. The concept is \"you are on the internet if you can reach the other hosts on the internet.\" \n\nIt's like your body: Your liver and your fingernails are part of you. But if you take out your liver or cut off your fingernails, those things are *not* part of your body anymore. Your body is defined as \"only the parts connected to your body\".\n\nSo the ISPs don't \"get the internet\" from other ISPs, they \"form the internet\" with other ISPs.\n\n > How do they hook their servers to other servers?\n\nThe internet is a network of networks. The people connecting the networks together rarely own the \"useful\" servers. So your question is really about networks.\n\nConnecting two networks together (\"peering\") is pretty cheap. That's how the big ISPs can peer with each other for free.\n\nBut just because connections don't \"cost\" much doesn't mean they aren't valuable. The network ports for peering are finite and limited, so they are worth a lot. (It's like building the same house in Detroit vs NYC. One will be more valuable, but they will cost the same to build.) Therefore, if you want to connect, you must bring something valuable to the table (millions of clients or servers). Those deals are very complex.\n\nFor example, there is a \"free rider\" problem. Let's say there are two ISPS: Cogent and Level3. A Cogent user in NY wants to talk to a Level3 user in LA. Cogent would rather send the traffic to Level3 right away (in NY) and let Level3 carry it from NY to LA. But Level3 would rather that Cogent carried the traffic to LA, then sent it to Level3 when it was closer to it's destination. How to choose fairly? (The answer is to try and balance the in/out traffic at each peering point. So if you start using their network, they will start using your network. If your network can't keep up, they get upset with you.)",
"In a REALLY simplified sense, the Internet (the thing by an through which you access some website, aka a web server, aka a regular computer) is just a bunch of routers, a bunch of more complex routers, and a bunch of even yet more complex routers. At some point, you grab a bunch of those routers and say \"These routers... these are mine. You have to pay me to connect to my routers.\" And voila, you're what's called an ISP.\n\nOh, and nobody's going to pay to connect to your bunch of routers if they aren't connected to all the other bunches of routers in the world.\n\nISPs don't have some central device-server-thing called the Internet, and they aren't the creators of content, despite what their ads might mislead you to believe.\n\nOh, and one more thing to answer the other part of your question. If other bunches of routers (i.e. ISPs) are eager or \"needing\" to hook up to your bunch of routers in order for them to be connected more and balance some of their traffic, then they pay you. If you are the one needing them, you pay them. It's really more a question of economics than physics or networking. They don't \"get\" the internet from someone else.",
"Think of an ISP like this:\n\nIf you had the money, you could lay the fiber from your home to EVERY SINGLE website you want to visit. So from home to Google servers, from home to Reddit servers, from home to Netflix servers and so on. If you do this (assuming those companies would let you) you don't need an ISP. You can access those sites.\n\nBut you want to access more sites, so you'd have to install other kilometres of fiber to every server on the world. Not very efficient, is it?\n\nSo what happens is this. You connecto to just one company (the ISP) and they are responsible for connecting you to every server on the world. How do they do that? They connect to a bigger one and so on.\n\nThese \"Bigger Ones\" are connected with each other. Google is connected to one of these Bigger Ones. My ISP is connected to another one (they might be in different continents).\nSince these 2 Bigger Ones are connected with each other with cables and fibers and under-ocean cables, now I have a connection with Google.\n\nAs you can see, there is no \"internet\" to plug your computer to. The ISP just gives you a path to connect to the Google server. If you can do this yourself, you don't need an ISP. \nSo the path is like this:\n\nYou - > local ISP - > state ISP - > Big One Europe ISP - > Big One America ISP - > state ISP (state where google server is) - > Google Server"
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fje9wd | why do you have to use distilled water in your nose as opposed to regular tap or purified water? | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/fje9wd/eli5_why_do_you_have_to_use_distilled_water_in/ | {
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"Bc distilled water is cleaner/purer/safer. Think about it. Your stomach/digestive system is designed to take all sorts of drink and food, gastric acid is highly corrosive, there r bacteria in us to help break down n digest these foodstuff, all these systems r able to cope with foodstuff that may b less than pure. Our sinuses aren’t made for the same requirements. Nothing but air is supposed to enter there, so they r much more vulnerable to infection",
"*[Did a Brain-Eating Amoeba Kill a Woman Who Rinsed Her Sinuses with Tap Water?](_URL_0_)*\n\n*Balamuthia mandrillaris infections are extremely rare and largely preventable, but the few cases that do occur are usually fatal.*\n\n**Snopes Verdict:** True\n\n > On 5 December 2018, the Seattle Times published an article whose terrifying headline ensured its own virality: “Rare brain-eating amoebas killed Seattle woman who rinsed her sinuses with tap water. Doctor warns this could happen again.”\n\n > Sadly for those who visited this page hoping to find that the reporting was exaggerated or made-up, this really happened. Though her anonymity was maintained, the story of a 69-year-old Seattle woman who used tap water in her Neti pot for over a year and then died from a Balamuthia mandrillaris brain infection was documented in a 20 September 2018 case study published in the *International Journal of Infectious Diseases*.",
"You could also use water that has been properly boiled. The problem with water sources that aren't distilled is the source is always questionable. Plus with boiled water, many people would use it too soon and burn the crap out of their faces.\n\nSo it isn't the quality of 'distilled' that makes the water usable. It is that ALL distilled water is free from Amoeba. Whereas MOST tap water is. Most purified water is also free of Amoeba, but purified water is also dual-use, someone might drink from it and contaminate it prior to use for your nose.\n\nSo, to simplify it for the common person, use distilled water, but you do have to include salt in the water. Straight distilled water is not good for your nose."
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1loisj | why is rubber "grippy"? | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/1loisj/why_is_rubber_grippy/ | {
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"rubber's surface is very porous, making for a high coefficient of friction (aka it sticks to things) combine this with high flexibility meaning its surface is able to 'touch' many parts of the other object (aka the difference between how a soft pillow bends around your head vs a table that sits flat) and you have \"grippy\" \n \nmathematically, the 'grip' of something is measured by surface area touching something + coefficient of friction and rubber can flex to touch a larger than average surface area and has a larger than average coefficient of friction",
"The way this was explained to me (in like, 3rd grade by my teacher) is that if you took a cross section of, say, a rubber ping pong paddle, it would (microscopically) look like valleys.\n\nBecause of these \"valleys\" they have more surface area and therefore higher coefficients of friction."
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1rubt4 | jesus and his disciples being devout jews | I thought modern Judaism taught that he was not divine, but just a rabbi? | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/1rubt4/eli5_jesus_and_his_disciples_being_devout_jews/ | {
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"That is what modern Judaism teaches. In the first century or so A.D., Christianity was considered a sect of Judaism. Am I getting at your question?\n\n > I thought modern Judaism taught that he was not divine, but just a rabbi? \n\n",
"Jesus was born and raised a Jew, and advocated religious reform of Judaism.\nHis original followers, the Jewish Christians (Judeo-Christians) still believed in the same theology on a basic level but also the teachings of Jesus Christ. Meaning there were several differences but ultimately they had the same religion.\n\nIt's similar to how the Orthodox and the Catholic are both Christians, even though they split as organizations around a thousand years ago and hold some different beliefs (Even if the Orthodox acknowledge the pope as a valid bishop). The fundamental dogma is still the same, the very basic tenets are the same:\n\"Jesus was born, baptised, crucified, and rose again on the third day\".\n\nSimilarly the old Christians still believed in the fundamental dogma of Judaism, as did presumably Jesus.\nIt's the entire reason Paul had to keep writing those damn letters.",
" > I thought modern Judaism taught that he was not divine, but just a rabbi?\n\nNot divine, nor a rabbi. Just a Jew. And a heretical one at that, depending on what sources you want to believe.",
"Not sure exactly what your question is getting at, but let me try.\n\nThere are lots of interpretations and sects in Judaism, and most of them believe that the messiah is coming. The just don't believe that Jesus was the messiah.\n\nSo, even back in Jesus's day, he was far from the only guy walking around claiming he was the messiah (or that his followers thought was the messiah). So they had different sects within Judaism. None of them were recognized as messiahs by mainstream Judaism, but Jesus's followers persevered and converted more followers and eventually his sect was the one with the most popular messiah, and that sect because Christianity. (Or, when people saw the resurrection, they recognized he was the true messiah. YMMV.)\n\nAs far as Jesus was concerned, he was Jewish. It didn't make any sense to him to have non-Jewish followers because what he thought he was doing was showing people the best way of being Jewish. (Like \"ignore this rule\" or \"focus on that rule\". He wasn't starting a religion from scratch.)\n\nAnyway, there's been lots of Jewish dudes before and since Jesus who claim to be the messiah, and none of them have been accepted by mainstream Judaism. (There's a sect of Judaism who believes their old rabbi was the messiah. He's been dead for a decade, but they're still waiting for him to come back.)\n\nFor some reason, lots of people believe that Judaism has something to say about Jesus. Like Jews have strong opinions about what he said or what he did or that Jews know he's really god's son but don't want to follow him for whatever reason. Judaism has *nothing* to say about Jesus or any of the religions that started in the last 3 thousand years.\n\nTo put it another way. Right now, just in my city, there are several hundred rabbis. There are lots of cities. There have been thousands of years since Jews began having rabbis. So, if Jews think about Jesus at all, they just assume he was once of these millions of unnamed rabbis. But, mostly, they don't.",
"It depends on what you mean by \"Modern Judaism.\" A common way to define it is the advent of \"Rabbinical Judaism\" after 70 CE; this is when the previous ruling priesthood fell apart after the destruction of the second temple, and Jews were subsequently lead by rabbis instead of priests - \"rabbi\" is a more informal title, whereas the priesthood was a full-on caste of Jewish society.\n\nThis didn't happen, as you can see, until some 30-40 years after Jesus's death, so while he might perhaps have been \"devout\", he wasn't a \"modern\" Jew.\n\nEven Christianity was not unified in Jesus's divinity until the 4th Century, and it remained a contentious issue for quite some time afterwards. A number of Christian churches were expelled from \"Christianity\" by the ecumenical councils of the latter half of the first millennium largely based on whether they believed he was divine as well as _just how divine_ he was (some, for instance, believed that he was divine, but not the son of God; others quibbled over whether Mary was herself divine, and so on).\n\nSome of those expelled sects still exist today, largely in northern Africa; most fall under the label of [\"Gnostic\" Christianity](_URL_0_)."
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8u9gz6 | if depression is caused by a chemical imbalance in the brain, why is depression so commonly associated with unfortunate life circumstances i.e. loss of a loved one, unemployment etc? | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/8u9gz6/eli5_if_depression_is_caused_by_a_chemical/ | {
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"Maybe because those unfortunate events cause a chemical imbalance in the brain?",
"The way you're using causality isn't correct here.\n\nDepression is behaviour we observe in others (and they report in themselves) which is often (not always) associated with observable changes in neurotransmitter levels in the brain. Correcting these levels with drugs can ease the symptoms of depression.\n\nWhat causes the depression is another story, and is not a solved issue in psychology. But we know that crises can trigger depression in some people (for a variety of complex reasons), and that once triggered it is very difficult for their systems to correct any imbalance without assistance (even after the crisis has passed).",
"Depression itself isn't, it's just a feeling.\n\nMajor Depressive Disorder is a mental illness thought to be caused by a chemical imbalance in the brain, and that can be treated with medication and/or therapy, depending on the needs of the individual.\n\nSituational depression is the feeling of depression during a stressful time, such as the death of a loved one, a personal failure, a divorce, etc, which brings about the physicality of depression. This is often treated with just therapy, as once the situation is corrected and you come to terms with what has happened, the feeling goes away.\n\nMDD is a chronic medical condition, and it is confusing when the two are conflated. "
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2ktztu | how do steroid creams help with eczema and how do they "thin the skin"? | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/2ktztu/eli5_how_do_steroid_creams_help_with_eczema_and/ | {
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"From what I understand, eczema is an immune response. Steroids weaken the immune response, therefore can be used to treat eczema. I've never heard about it thinning skin though. "
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6agn0o | why do people suffocate near the top of mt. everest where the air is thinner, if you're filling your lungs with air regardless of the thickness of the atmosphere? | [deleted] | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/6agn0o/eli5_why_do_people_suffocate_near_the_top_of_mt/ | {
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"The human lungs are about 6 liters in volume. The pressure at the top of Mt Everest (4.89 psi) is about a 1/3 of the pressure at isea level (14.7 psi).\n\nIf the volume is the same, but the pressure is a 1/3, that means there is 1/3 as many air molecules in your breath.\n\nThe reason you are suffocating is because each breath filling your lungs only has 1/3 of the air in it. So you need to take 3 times as many breaths."
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1ambb7 | why doesn't california just build more highways? | I haven't spent a lot of time there, but the one time I did, I was stuck on the 405 for 4 hours and moved half a mile. I still have no idea what the reason was.
I have a child-like understanding of infrastructure. The entire country recognizes and jokes about how bad LA traffic is. Why not just build a parallel 6-lane highway up and down? | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/1ambb7/eli5why_doesnt_california_just_build_more_highways/ | {
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"You can't just... build a highway in the middle of the city. There's stuff around.",
"Highways are expensive, and in LA the land is even more expensive. It's really hard to raise taxes in CA.",
"I'd like to pose another question:\n\nWhat is the reasoning behind there not being a public transit system in place? Possibly a subway or train system. Is it due to the high seismic activity?"
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djw0pw | what does it mean for this blob organism to have 720 different sexes? | [_URL_0_](_URL_0_) | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/djw0pw/eli5_what_does_it_mean_for_this_blob_organism_to/ | {
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"If I'm not mistaken it means that it has 720 variations of it's sex chromosomes unlike humans which have 2.\n\nFor example humans primarily have XX and XY. This organism could have many different variations than that.",
"We only have 2 types of chromosomes and 2 \"slots\" for them, that is XX and XY. That gives us 2!/2 possibilities.\n\n\nThis blob probably has 6 types of chromosomes that cannot be repeated. Let's call them a, b,c, d, e and f. So, one possibility is adfbce. Another, bfeacd. In the end we have 6! = 720 possibilities.\n\n\nOBS: I'm not sure about the way the chromosomes for thr blob works. It was just an example that works with the number given.",
"This organism doesn't have sex organs, it reproduces by directly combining DNA with another cell. There are three locations where the DNA can break and recombine. At those locations, there are genes that have different alleles, one has 16 possibilities, one has 15, and one has 3...16 x 3 x 15 = 720. Some allele combinations are compatible with one another, some are not, which is why we can thing of each combination as a sex."
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2hogjh | why happens when i vicariously feel pain when i see/hear someone get hurt? does this have an evolutionary purpose? | For example, a mother feeling pain instantly when her child falls. | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/2hogjh/eli5_why_happens_when_i_vicariously_feel_pain/ | {
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"When I was a boy scout, my Mammal Studies teacher taught me that all life boils down to two directives. \n\n1. Don't die. \n\n2. Make babies. \n\nTo be more scientific, evolution gives us natural dispensations towards continuing the human race. When a mother sees a child hurt, she feels the pain and wants to help the child, thus continuing the species. When you see a person get eaten by a lion, you feel his pain and want to get out of there, thus continuing the species. \n\nEdit: I really need to start proofreading my comments. My typing is not as accurate as it used to be. "
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1a9as4 | google reader (or rss feeds in general) | Seems that Google Reader is shutting down July 1st. What's it all about? | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/1a9as4/eli5_google_reader_or_rss_feeds_in_general/ | {
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"Oh, hello, five-year-old that knows how to use reddit. Do you like water? Me too! Some people like water so much they go to different places to pick up water each day, and the stores sell different pieces of water each day. Different stores sell different colors of water, so people will drive by each store and pick up all the different colors of water.\n\nBut for some people, they didn't want to do that! What if the water got mixed up? Google Reader went around and said \"Hey, guys! I can help! I can go around, pick up all the new water for you, and then you can come by to my store and see all the water there, even if it's from more then one store.\" So people told Google Reader what stores they bought the water from, and Google Reader went around and let the people look and drink the water at their site.\n\nBut Google Reader seems to think that not enough people use it, and so they're closing down. Which is sad, because lots of people DO use it, and they are all sad. Which is sadly terribly sad.\n\n(Different bits of water = items in RSS feed, different colors of water = different sites, Store = website)",
"Readers subscribe to sites (mostly blogs) that update regularly, so you can read all of em in one place. Like a twitter feed. ",
"So just to explain RSS. RSS stands for Really Simple Syndication. \n\nIt is a standard format that has been decided on and agreed to, to share news and information easily. \n\nYou see computers (computer programs) are kind of dumb in a lot of ways. They expect things to come in a known format, or else they can't make sense of what they are getting. It takes a certain amount of intelligence to look a random web page, or a random chunk of information , and be able to figure out what it is. Most programs do not have the intelligence to figure this out. \n\nIf everybody was sending out data in a random format, then it would be a nightmare for a computer program to make sense of it all. Some guys might call the title just TITLE lets say, and wrap the title like this: < TITLE > My Title < /TITLE > . Some other guys might call it something else, like: < CONTENT_TITLE > My Title < /CONTENT_TITLE > . \n\nHow would the computer program know that both meant the same thing? Just something a simple as this, is very hard for a computer to make sense of. \n\nRSS sends out information in a format that tells the program exactly what it is. So you have a section for the title, a section for the short description, a section for an image, a section for the main content, maybe a link back to the original source. The program knows what information it's going to get and in what format, and can take this information and can make sense of it and display it correctly to the user.\n\nThe format is now widespread, so publishers of content can easily set up an RSS feed from their site, and they know that lots of people will easily be able to consume that content through their RSS readers. \n\nIt's all about everybody agreeing to organize things in a certain way really. What the format itself is isn't really that important. RSS is the one that became popular. \n\nGoogle Reader is just one the programs that takes an RSS feed, and displays it for the user. \n\nYou can see an example of an RSS feed here: _URL_0_"
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3d3q6t | how does a life support system specifically exchange carbon dioxide into oxygen/hydrogen? (on a space station or shuttle, i.e. iss) | Is it purely a chemical reaction? Is the process limited based on supply, or reliant on energy?
***BONUS POINTS***:
What are the psychological effects of prolonged exposure to an artificial atmosphere? (If any)
Is artificial gravity easy to simulate? Is there an alternative to rotation?
What is the protocol if someone is harmed during a mission?
How is communication possible between the space station and earth? | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/3d3q6t/eli5_how_does_a_life_support_system_specifically/ | {
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"CO2 is removed using molecular filters. \"Dirty\" air is passed through silica gel to remove the moisture, then passed through a molecular filter (zeolite - an aluminum-silicon-oxygen mixture) that lets the smaller oxygen and nitrogen molecules pass, but blocks the CO2. The CO2 is then vented overboard.\n\nOxygen is derived through electrolysis - electricity is passed through water to split it into oxygen gas and hydrogen gas. The H2 is vented overboard, and the oxygen is added to the air.\n\n\nBonus questions:\nThere are no known psychological effects of prolonged exposure to artificial atmosphere.\n\nArtificial gravity without rotation is not currently possible as it violates the laws of physics as we currently understand them.\n\nDepends on the situation and what you mean by harm. Protocols are different for different situations.\n\nRadio."
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bh024c | why does attraction sometimes suddenly fade? | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/bh024c/eli5_why_does_attraction_sometimes_suddenly_fade/ | {
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"I’m a cis guy, and I have experienced this at least once. For me, as I got to know this person, I started to realize that we were incompatible housemates. I still love her very much, and I enjoy time and intimacy with her, but I do not feel aroused (often) by, or attracted to her. There are occasions when I do feel an attraction, but not frequently."
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23v6qm | patriotism, what is it, why does it exist, how does one be/become/remain patriotic? | It is a very difficult concept for me to understand. For what reason does one dedicate any amount of anything to some lines on a map and a vague idea of a country? | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/23v6qm/eli5_patriotism_what_is_it_why_does_it_exist_how/ | {
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"It's a sense of pride and for your country and the willingness to take steps to either defend or support your country. It should be an easy concept to understand really. If you believe in what your country stands for and does then why not support it? Also you have to imagine that many people were born and raised in their respective home countries. So when their older they can attribute the person they became to the country. \n\nTheir quality of life is usually made possible because of where they live so it makes sense they would want to protect and advance it for themselves and for their children.\n\nAlso note that often patriots disagree with what their country does and are fighting to get things back to the way they were or for change to better the country(whatever better is for them).\n\nThe military, sport's, cuisine, etc can contribute to someone being a patriot. I hate when people make it sound like It's a brainwashing technique though. I acknowledge the fact that there is social pressure to like your country but most people aren't being brainwashed to be patriotic. Believe it or not some people can just become that way normally."
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fd6uy1 | how does a zit/pimple go away naturally? | People say don't pick your skin because it makes pimples/zits worse, but I don't really get how they go away on their own if I don't pop them. I searched online, but the sources that I was able to find only explained pimple formation and treatment options as opposed to the process that makes them go away. If I understand that process, I think I'll be able to stop picking at my skin so much.
Does the pus just dissipate back into the skin? Does the skin push it out on its own? What's my body supposed to be doing if I don't pick at my face? | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/fd6uy1/eli5_how_does_a_zitpimple_go_away_naturally/ | {
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"Macrophages!! Tiny little cells that clean up cellular debris. They eat all sorts of crap. Scabs, dead bacteria, the list goes on."
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5whql6 | what benefits are there to dilluting us federal power and emplowering us state governments? | I have asked people the following question and didn't receive any real explanation or what the pros and cons are. I started wondering if I just don't understand well enough. | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/5whql6/eli5_what_benefits_are_there_to_dilluting_us/ | {
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"From a historical perspective, the federal government never had that power in the first place. Under British rule, each colony governed independently with only minor control from the crown (it's hard to micromanage colonies when it takes months to send messages). The states were reluctant to give up any power at all after declaring independence from Britain.\n\nIn the first attempt at a federal government, under the Articles of Confederation, the federal government barely had any power at all. It was unable to levy taxes, so all it could really do was issue sternly worded letters and rely on the states to enforce them. The US Constitution is actually the states giving up more power to the federal government, not the federal government giving up more power to the states.\n\nFrom a modern perspective, the federal-state divide is useful because it lets states act as experiments for new laws. It's very difficult to convince 300 million people across many different geographies and living styles that something is a good idea. It's easier to start passing laws at the local level, and then going to the state and then federal level if it turns out to be a good idea and repealing it if it is not. ",
"Use recreational marijuana legalization as an example.\n\nYou're starting out with zero states that have legalized marijuana for medial OR recreational use. It will take a LOT of public pressure to overturn this at the federal level - not just from more liberal states, but also conservative states.\n\nThere's a lot of questions - what will be the societal impact? Will unemployment go up if people get easier access to a \"gateway drug\"? Will marijuana use among teens go up? How much tax revenue will we actually get from this? Will people just keep buying it illegally to save money? What are the health ramifications be in the medium to long term be? Will usage of harder drugs go up?\n\nThese are all things we can debate ad naseum but can never figure out unless we actually try it. Is it better to try this out nationwide all at once, or bit by bit? If California legalizes recreational marijuana use, and it results in a negligible increase in \"bad\" things and we find out it generates a ton of extra tax revenue... Then it's that much more likely other states are going to try it out. If it turns out that tax revenue isn't what they were projecting and it has a lot of negative effects, it's only one state that's screwed up instead of 50.\n\nFurthermore, what might work well for California and Washington might not work well for Texas and Wyoming.",
"Power in the US does not start with the Federal Government, it starts with the States. The Federal government only gets those powers that the States let them get. It is suppose to be limited to only those powers granted in the constitution, but the Federal Government has slowly gained far more power than it is intended to have. There is a lot of pressure within US to give some of that \"Stolen power\" back to the States where it technically belongs. ",
"Different people have different idea on how they would like their government to act. When you have a more decentralised government where the state have more power, then each state can act differently and have different priority that reflect more what the population of that state want. \n\n",
"America is a giant patchwork of different states, all of which have different problems, different expectations, and different cultures. Some scholars have identified around eleven regions that have inherited different value systems as a result of when, where, and by whom they were colonized. The difference between state and federal power is an acknowledgement that each state might have different needs and require different solutions.\n\nThe \"Pro\" is that each state gets to make its own rules and thereby fulfill the wishes of its own residents. Low-population states can minimize the influence of high-population states, because the higher-population states have less power to impose inappropriate or unpopular policies.\n\nThe \"Con\" is that having a patchwork of different laws making up your country can cause problems. Restricting guns or drugs, for example, doesn't make much difference if people can easily acquire them in a less-restrictive state. Or imagine your business asks you to relocate to a state where the laws are unfavorable to you, and you have to choose between your livelihood and your way of life. There is really no logic to having the difference between law and criminality decided by an imaginary line drawn in the dirt.",
"Closer control means that the local governments are more likely to represent the views of the people. This means that California can choose to have a highly taxed State that provides free healthcare and higher education, while Texas can be a libertarian utopia where the government is restricted to its most basic functions and everybody is taxed and regulated at its most minimum. \n\nToo much Federal government restricts the rights of the resists to make these choices. Mainly if Federal taxes restrict the States' ability to tax or ability to regulate.",
"The concept of federalism is that an issue is usually best handled by those closest to it. Power is decentralized into multiple smaller areas, ones that are made up primarily of those who care about and are affected by a particular issue, to be resolved by those same people. Virginians know more about issues that affect Virginians, and Californians know more about issues that affect Californians. Those groups retain their own authority to handle issues and policies for their own citizens. Only issues that a smaller level cannot do on its own, such as national defense, are given to the larger level of government. The goal of this is to create not a one-size-fits-all way of doing everything, but many ways of doing things, specific to those groups of people who want things done their way. In addition it creates what is commonly called the \"50 laboratories\" theory in that each state can experiment with the best ways of doing something for their people, and other states can look at how others are doing something to see if maybe it will also work for them. This system is overall far more dynamic, able to respond to the specific and varying needs of their own groups, and offers more opportunity to see what works and what doesn't. It also gives individuals much more of a say in how their own issues are handled. One of the criticisms of the electoral college is the oft cited disparity between the \"weight\" an individual voter in California has vs. one in say Wyoming, due to the differences in populations vs electoral votes. Well in federalism, this isn't supposed to be that big of a deal since the vast majority of issues that affect Californians are supposed to be handled at the state level by Californians for Californians in the first place. The amount of power a federal government that they might night have voted for (and had their population weight work against them in the federal elections) has over them isn't supposed to be very large in the first place.",
"If your party controls one but not the other, then you want power concentrated where you have the control.\n\nEx. Republicans control a particular state government, want the federal government to butt out and let them do as they please. Democrats want to use the federal government to dictate policy to the state.\n\nDemocrats take the state, but lose federal elections. Situation is reversed, the Dems want the state to be left to its own devices, Republicans try to use the federal government to dictate policy to the state.\n\nRecently, the Republicans have paid more lip service to \"states rights\" than Democrats, but the situation may be changing with Trump in the Oval Office - Dems have found a new reason to favor devolution of power.",
"besides the answers given it also allows for 50 'tests' to be done with a set base (federal law) while the variables are allowed to operate and ideally permits people to go to the places that the tests are doing well and they agree with what is happening",
"There are three broad reasons:\n\n1) Social (or Socioeconomic)\n\n2) Legal\n\n3) Political\n\n1) From the founding of the nation, social differences have led Americans to value their control over their community at the state and local level even if they lack effective control at the Federal level. The Connecticut Compromise was designed to protect free states from being forced to allow slavery and to allow slave states to continue to enslave people. \n\nToday it means coastal communities can pass laws that enshrine equality while interior communities can pass laws that enshrine personal liberties (for example) without imposing their wills upon one another.\n\n2) The power of government is derived from the people. With the exception of the enumerated powers in the US Constitution, the States are responsible for passing laws and regulating their communities. Congress needs to shoe-horn in some connection to the Interstate Commerce Clause (or others) to justify its actions, or the federal courts will find them an unconstitutional overreach. Civil experts can disagree upon where that line is drawn.\n\n3) The party in power is generally interested in wielding that power wherever they are. The party running the state house wants more state power, the party running DC wants more federal power. The strongest power that Congress wields is the \"power of the purse.\" \n\nRegardless of dialogue to the contrary, both parties are happy to wield this power to effect whatever political change suits them. Direct funding of programs may be switched to block grants, but it won't be eliminated, because the political power of choosing where and how to spend money is not a gift to be given away. ",
"It makes government policy adapt more closely to the local population. The appropriate levels of say gun regulation might be different in Alaska than Connecticut. Pollution controls might make more sense in New Jersey than Montana. A one size fits all federal policy might not be better than one tailored to individual states.\n\nThere are a few drawbacks:\n\n* historically states government power has been used to infringe on civil rights\n* it can provide a financial incentive to \"race to the bottom\" (like Missouri puppy mills)\n* there is economic benefit to having one set of regulations instead of fifty\n* it makes it harder to balance state contributions to the federal government...Alaska provides great benefit through its natural resources but lacks the population and tax base to maintain the needed infrastructure...granting Alaska more federal assistance benefits everyone\n\n\n\n\n\n",
"The short answer is that states can represent their constituents far better than the entire country. E.g, Montana, the state with one of the smallest percentage African American, would be hindered by federal affirmative action laws far more than the state with the most African Americans, Georgia. America is full of a huge amount of people with incredibly different circumstances, and if the federal government tries to make laws that affect them all, some of them will benefit at others' loss.",
"The US is geographically huge compared to most other nations. This means that what works in one part of the nation does not work as well in another. Distributing power to more local governments allows for solutions to be more tailored to the problems. \n\nIn addition, although there is some debate on the matter, many people think the founders of the nation intended it to be that way and set the initial structures of government with that in mind so that distributing the power to the local levels will actually allow government to work more efficiently. \n\nDistribution of power also means the distribution of responsibility for the issues, which requires the balance of taxation to shift more toward the states. This means that citizens would see their tax dollars have more of an impact in areas closer to where they live. ",
"It allows different states to have different policies depending on local needs. \n\nFor instance, say two States have an unemployment problem. However in one state a lot of the unemployed are younger people fresh out of school, who can't find jobs because they have no experience. In the other states it's mostly people who are 45+ who now can't find jobs because they are too old. Ideally in such a situation, you need for the government to use different tools in the two states to handle their specific problem with unemployment.\n\nOn the other hand, too much federalizing of powers can lead to problems as well. \n\nIn my country for instance, traffic rules are federalized. This means that since recently, depending on what state you are in the default speed limits on various types of roads are not the same any more. This means that to get your driver's license and not get fines, you now need to know the various speed limits for the three states. \n\nSo in essence in can be good and it can be bad depending on what issues you're looking at. Some things are indeed better handled at a lower level, some are not. But getting that right is not straightforward."
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4x61a4 | how do companies go public? | And more specifically, what drives that decision and who pursues the IPO for that company? | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/4x61a4/eli5_how_do_companies_go_public/ | {
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"Senior management (CFO, CEO etc) and the board decide to go public. They hire an investment bank and a top law firm (the kind where the partners charge $1500 an hour) to prepare the necessary papers and do the investment pitch. The accounting firm works with them to get their books up to snuff. Costs millions of bucks.\n\nThey do it either because they have to (used to be you needed to once you had 500 shareholders, including stock option holders) or because they want to (e.g. so their investors can unload their shares) and it's a good time (e.g. stock market is strong).\n",
"The biggest driver behind going public is the need for funding. At some point, a company may not be able to fund their growth with their existing financing (investors, bank debt) or, more importantly, it's too expensive. That's when management and the board of directors explore going public. To do this, they seek the help of an investment bank, who then determine a valuation and court investors. Investment banks actually hold the risk for the shares, meaning they buy the shares first, sell what they can and hold what they can't. \n\nMarket conditions drive supply and demand which drives company valuations up or down. Lately, companies have decided that there is too much risk to go public. \n",
"I have a huge pile of candy and thats nice. But what I actually want is a candy machine! man that would be sweet I could have all the candy I want.\n\nBut candy machines are expensive and I cant afford one - but i bet if i can convince my friends on the playground to all chip in together we could afford it, they can have a small portion of the candy depending on how much they put in and I will run the candy machine. everyone will be happy and have candy, the end."
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1zdrbv | can you swim after you eat? | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/1zdrbv/eli5_can_you_swim_after_you_eat/ | {
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"It's perfectly safe. Your body won't go, \"Sorry arms and legs, it's digestion time,\" and redirect blood to your intestines. That's bulldust. ",
"Yes. Its not about puking, its about once you eat, the blood rushes to your stomach and you have *slightly* less energy. Not enough to be dangerous. ",
"If you can already swim, then you will still be able to swim after eating. The issue with swimming after eating are just like doing any physical activity after eating. If you eat a big meal and then run like crazy, you might find yourself not feeling so great. But if you take a casual walk afterwards, you'll be fine. The same is true with swimming: you may find yourself ill if you swim a lot of laps, but you'll be fine if you are just cooling off. "
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3zctp4 | can nuclear bombs and or missles be dismantled? | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/3zctp4/eli5_can_nuclear_bombs_and_or_missles_be/ | {
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"[Yes they can](_URL_0_). It has been something advocated for decades by various groups and accelerated after the end of the cold war."
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j78lq | the difference between private healthcare and public healthcare | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/j78lq/eli5_the_difference_between_private_healthcare/ | {
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"I'm not 100% on the Australian system, but this should basically explain it:\n\nPublic healthcare is a hospital. Lots of different patients, many doctors and nurses. Partially paid for by the government.\n\nPrivate healthcare is a called a practice. It's a lot smaller, and often targets one specific type of patient, e.g. those who need a knee replacement. \n\n# \n## Warning: complicated stuff below that explains the underlying 'problem' with private practice.\n# \nTo understand why private practitioners make so much money, it's important to understand the following. \n\nHospitals can do two types of treatment: treatment that makes them money and that costs them money. Insurance companies are not willing to pay the huge costs for cancer treatment for a patient directly. It'd mess up their statistics or something. So if that treatment costs 10X money, they get 2X from the insurance and have to pay the rest themselves. To be able to pay that treatment they need money, so they 'overcharge' the insurance companies for the 'cheap' treatments (note: this is all regulated and consensual). So instead of charging X (the cost), they charge 2X. So they make 1X profit per treatment to cover for the expenses of cancer treatment.\n\nA private practice offers only specific types of treatment- and you guessed it- those who make money. Since they don't need the excess amount to cover for radiation therapy, they can charge less than 2X and still more than 1X. Result: they make more money, whilst being cheaper for the insurance companies. That results in more patients being sent there, and less 'cheap' patients to the hospital. Eventually the hospitals will no longer be able to pay for the expensive treatment if this continues.\n\nThat's why doctors often dislike private practitioners- they're money wolves and mes sup the system at the same time.",
"I'm not 100% on the Australian system, but this should basically explain it:\n\nPublic healthcare is a hospital. Lots of different patients, many doctors and nurses. Partially paid for by the government.\n\nPrivate healthcare is a called a practice. It's a lot smaller, and often targets one specific type of patient, e.g. those who need a knee replacement. \n\n# \n## Warning: complicated stuff below that explains the underlying 'problem' with private practice.\n# \nTo understand why private practitioners make so much money, it's important to understand the following. \n\nHospitals can do two types of treatment: treatment that makes them money and that costs them money. Insurance companies are not willing to pay the huge costs for cancer treatment for a patient directly. It'd mess up their statistics or something. So if that treatment costs 10X money, they get 2X from the insurance and have to pay the rest themselves. To be able to pay that treatment they need money, so they 'overcharge' the insurance companies for the 'cheap' treatments (note: this is all regulated and consensual). So instead of charging X (the cost), they charge 2X. So they make 1X profit per treatment to cover for the expenses of cancer treatment.\n\nA private practice offers only specific types of treatment- and you guessed it- those who make money. Since they don't need the excess amount to cover for radiation therapy, they can charge less than 2X and still more than 1X. Result: they make more money, whilst being cheaper for the insurance companies. That results in more patients being sent there, and less 'cheap' patients to the hospital. Eventually the hospitals will no longer be able to pay for the expensive treatment if this continues.\n\nThat's why doctors often dislike private practitioners- they're money wolves and mes sup the system at the same time."
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1vaytp | how are the tiles on the bottom of the space shuttle able to resist so much heat? i cannot seem to get a clear answer. | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/1vaytp/how_are_the_tiles_on_the_bottom_of_the_space/ | {
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"The tiles and other insulation are made of materials that are not good conductors of heat.\n\n_URL_0_\n\n"
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cndpno | why is it that some animals cannot be domesticated? if canines are/were vicious predators why cant other animals, such as tigers, too be domesticated? | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/cndpno/eli5_why_is_it_that_some_animals_cannot_be/ | {
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"It's not impossible to domesticate wild animals like tigers or bears. Though complete obedience can't be guaranteed it's certainly possible to make them docile and have them perform tricks or whatever if you're so inclined.\n\nThe thing is, a domestic tiger or bear is just not as useful as a dog or cat. It takes way too much effort and resources to support and doesn't have much practical use for us as humans so we've never really bothered domesticating them on the same scale as say cats and dogs.\n\nThose animals were already generally small, and could be useful to keep: dogs could help forage or hunt while cats were known to kill smaller animals who could ruin crops. Through years of breeding those animals have become even more suitable as human companions and used to the symbiotic relation we have as masters and pets.",
"For thousands of years dogs and cats with docile personalities have been bred and those with violent tendencies are not allowed to breed\n\nYou can “tame” a wild animal but can never really trust that it will not revert under stress\n\nIt’s the same concept used for generations in agriculture selective breeding sheep that produce more wool or chickens that grow fat faster or even crops that are resistant to potential biological threats \n\nYou should start breeding the most docile tigers now; good luck",
"*Domesticated* and *tamed* are two very different words with very different meanings, and the difference is important to your question.\n\nA *tamed* animal is one individual animal that has been *taught* to be friendly and/or useful to humans. This is a process that takes perhaps as long as the lifetime of the animal, if it's particularly stubborn, aggressive, or otherwise not receptive to taming. There are plenty of animals out there that I, at least, think can't be tamed because they're just too aggressive. Honey badgers come to mind.\n\n*Domestication* is the *long* process of selectively breeding a *species* to have traits favorable to humans, especially a willingness to be *tamed* by humans. This takes generations upon generations, and becomes an inherent part of that species or subspecies.\n\nSo for example, a friendly wolf that knows commands is not domesticated, it is tamed. It's still a wolf and will always be a wolf, and will always have wolf-like tendencies (like a very high prey drive and distrust of other humans). A dog - *any* dog - is part of a domesticated subspecies of wolf and, although individual personality varies greatly, *any* dog barring unexpected mutations is going to be inherently friendlier and more capable of being handled by a human (until they are taught otherwise, which is unfortunately something terrible humans do to dogs too often).\n\nCan any animal be tamed? Doubtful, at least in my opinion. But *any* animal can theoretically be domesticated, as long as you have 1) enough time to wait across generations, 2) the resources to take care of the breeding stock, and 3) the ability to contain and control untamed, undomesticated individuals.\n\nThroughout most of human history we didn't have the capability to do most of those things for most species. There are only of species we could domesticate. Now, we probably *can* domesticate just about anything, but why? We don't have any good reason to spend that much time or resources doing it."
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4c52yg | why can a baker keep their breads out to exposed air and still be 'fresh' where i take it home and leave it out the bag for an hour and it's rock hard? | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/4c52yg/eli5_why_can_a_baker_keep_their_breads_out_to/ | {
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"I worked in a bread bakery for 6+ years and have no idea what you're talking about. Our bread would be baked from approx. midnight until 8 am or so and a loaf that came out at 2 in the morning would still be tasty at 6pm. I've never seen a loaf get \"rock hard\"; if anything they tend to get softer at first. We donated all our leftover breads to local shelters and anything that went into those bags tended to be squishier than after I had pulled them from the oven.\n\nOnce you break the crust (it acts as a seal in most cases) you should keep it stored in a bag or bread box to lessen the effect of air. Never bag them hot and never put them in the fridge.",
"You cut the bread. The bakery hasn't. The crust is a protective layer that helps bread stay softer longer. \n\nFor best results, buy smaller loaves and eat them each completely on the day you start them."
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4gityr | what is an "agile" environment? | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/4gityr/eli5_what_is_an_agile_environment/ | {
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"It's a development methodology used frequently to make a product. The idea being that those developing the product make periodic short-term goals (called stories) which should have clear, definable tasks which can be assigned to the engineers making the thing. Then the engineers work for a defined period called a sprint (often two weeks to a month depending on the group and product) to meet those goals. A daily meeting (called a scrum), is held very quickly each day to assess any potential things holding up assigned tasks. At the end of one sprint, the engineers and anyone else involved assess the current state of the product, create new stories, assign new tasks, and begin a new sprint, repeating the process until the product is complete. ",
"Agile is a Software Development Methodology.\n\n* What it actually is:\n\nTask is divided into stories, and a time period (sprint ) is when they need to be completed by. You have a daily meeting to discuss progress/share resources. Every sprint ends by starting to make a new series of Stories to do on the next sprint, and how long these stories will take.\n\n* How you'll experience it:\n\nA task is divided into stories, and a time period (sprint) is when you must accomplish several. You'll have a daily meeting where you will blame 1 dev for why you are off schedule. New stories will be added without developer's consent or input, and there will be no difference between sprints/planning.\n",
"From January 1986\n\n[The New New Product Development Game](_URL_0_) by Hirotaka Takeuchi and Ikujiro Nonaka is one of the earliest descriptions of Agile development environments I'm aware of.\n\n > This holistic approach has six characteristics: built-in instability, self-organizing project teams, overlapping development phases, “multilearning,” subtle control, and organizational transfer of learning. The six pieces fit together like a jigsaw puzzle, forming a fast flexible process for new product development. Just as important, the new approach can act as a change agent: it is a vehicle for introducing creative, market-driven ideas and processes into an old, rigid organization.\n\nThey compare traditional project management with phases to a rigid relay race where you have to wait for the previous runner to complete, and the new approach where the creative people are free to exchange ideas and progress to a game of rugby where people move into free spaces and move the ball quicker than the people can run.\n\n > The traditional sequential or “relay race” approach to product development—exemplified by the National Aeronautics and Space Administration’s phased program planning (PPP) system—may conflict with the goals of maximum speed and flexibility. Instead, a holistic or “rugby” approach—where a team tries to go the distance as a unit, passing the ball back and forth—may better serve today’s competitive requirements.\n\nThis analogy inspired the term \"Scrum\" which is the name of a popular style of Agile development.",
"I think it is most easily understood when compared with Waterfall development. In the Waterfall Methodology, the entire product is developed, then the entire product is tested.\n\nIn Agile Development a small portion, usually 1-2 weeks worth of work are developed. Then that portion of work is tested. Repeat until product is finished. This generally means QA is involved earlier on in the development life cycle and that often results in a better product. ",
"An \"agile environment\" is an environment where \"agile\" software development principles are applied (or at least someone claims that those are applied). It is important to note that there is no such thing as THE agile methodology. What everyone explains here is called \"scrum\", which is AN agile methodology, as are \"extreme programming\", \"agile modeling\", and a bunch more. Each of those methods is characterized by the fact that they are rooted in the philosophy of the agile movement. The wikipedia page has a decent explanation of the agile principles I believe: _URL_0_",
"the Manifesto for Agile Software Development doesn't really dictate what an \"Agile\" environment is. It just states the following:\n > We are uncovering better ways of developing\n > software by doing it and helping others do it.\n > Through this work we have come to value:\n\n > Individuals and interactions over processes and tools.\n\n > Working software over comprehensive documentation.\n\n > Customer collaboration over contract negotiation.\n\n > Responding to change over following a plan.\n\n > That is, while there is value in the items on the right, we value the items on the left more.\n\nsource: _URL_0_",
"Wow, so much bad information here.\n\nAgile is not a methodology, it is a philosophy or better yet a set of principles. Implementations of agile principles are methodologies, like scrum, etc. The principles prevent you from simply taking a methodology and applying it fully to your project or organization. Here is a good Harvard article that explains agile in easy to understand way.\n\n_URL_0_\n\nSome of the below ELI5s cover these things but it's critical to remember that agile is intended to be principles not methods. Methods are derived from the principles but rote application of methods without understanding of why is the reason why there is so much disinformation on the subject.\n\nEdit: simply.",
"Agile can be summarised very briefly:\n\n* Only work on the most important things at any given point in time\n* Break those things into small bite-sized tasks for individuals to work on autonymously \n* Catch up for about 10-20 minutes every morning on progress\n* Meet at the end of a set of 'things' to plan the next set of 'things'\n\nEdit: As someone pointed out the flavour of Agile here is Scrum. Agile broadly can be summarised by the first two bullets.",
"Where I work, Agile=Endless status meetings and micromanagement, resulting in less work done than the pre-Agile era.",
"Your dad wants you and your 3 friends to build a Lego castle for him. He provides the details about the castle, like the color of the walls, height of the towers, and number of gates. Your job is to build it according to his specification.\n\nA straightforward way to do this is take the instructions, build the castle from the ground up, and present it to your dad when finished. This may work, but could also cause problems. What if your dad sees the castle and decides he wants green walls instead of brown? Uh oh, too late - you already built the whole thing. To change the walls you need to redo 3/4 of your work. \n\nA more **Agile** approach is to break the castle construction into smaller parts and frequently show them to your Dad. For example, in Hour 1 you build one side of the wall while your friend builds half a single guard tower. Then you show both to your Dad and ask what he thinks. If he likes it, you proceed. If not, he can suggest changes. And because Dad sees progress as it happens, changes are a lot easier since you only have to rebuild one component and not the whole castle. \n\nThere is a lot more to it and yes, many companies completely butcher the implementation or mistreat their employees using this model. But this is the general idea and purpose of Agile. ",
"When you ask someone to do a big piece of complicated work, they often ask you to specify every little detail of what exactly you need. They will then tell you how long it will take, and how much money it will cost you. And you are not allowed to change your mind (or they will charge you even more and will take even more time).\n\n\nIt is very hard to think of everything you will need to the smallest detail. Especially if you are trying to get something built that is complicated and will take a long time to build - such as getting someone to build your house or to build you a big computer program. \n\n\nIn an \"agile\" approach, the person who will be doing your work will not ask you for all the details (many of which you may not even know, or may want to change your mind). They will instead ask you what the most important part of the work is. For example, if you are getting a house built, you will say that you want a two storey house, 3 bedrooms, 3 bathrooms, a big kitchen, a living room, and a basement.\n\n\nThe people building your house in an \"agile\" way will then quickly build a very basic house based on what you said, and will do it in a very short period of time. They will not spend any money on anything else, and will not even build walls, or put appliances. They will build you something that works, but works in a very basic raw form. This is called \"minimum viable product\" or MVP.\n\n\nThey will now give you and your spouse a full walk-through of this quickly built but barebones house that just meets your basic requirements. Now, you can better visualize your house, how you will live in it. Perhaps you will look at it and realize you really do not need such a large living room and really need a 4th bedroom instead. It will still be additional expense for them to convert the larger living room and give you an additional bedroom. But it will also be much cheaper and quicker than if they had to break down a fully finished and painted living room.\n\n\nNow the people building your house will work with you on what they can quickly build next. So now you can say you want your 4th bedroom. And you now decide the other things to be completed. For example, along with the 4th bedroom, you will decide to get your kitchen fully built up with counter tops, cabinets, and appliances. But remember, only your kitchen. You also want them to get this done again in a short period of time, so you should not put too many things into a single release (keep it for the next release).\n\n\nThey will again work on this to get it done quickly. And again, because they are not trying to fully build the house all at once, they can do just the kitchen much more quickly. Once they are done, they will again give you a full walk-through of the kitchen. This will also be their second \"release\" and demo/walk-through to the client (you).\n\n\nUsing this approach, the people building your house in an agile approach will build it room by room, in multiple \"releases\"; instead of building the entire house (or computer software) at once. This allows you to see your house as it is being built one room at a time, and also allows you to change your mind, and spend more money or less on specific rooms. Also, if your house builder quits midway or you run out of money, you still have a house in which at least some things work (say, 2 bedrooms and 2 bathrooms are fully built out out of 4). You will not be left with a house that is, say, 80% complete but is unlivable because the roof has not been laid or because none of the bathrooms work.\n\n\nIn short, an \"agile\" way of working is about releasing multiple quick and cheap versions to the client, instead of one big release. The thing to be careful here is that each mini release should work completely in itself. One way to do this is as I explained in the example. If a customer wants to build something that does (say) 5 different things (or a house that has 5 rooms), each release would focus on fully building out each thing (or room). This way, after each quick mini release, the client has something that works, and has already got the results (and value) for the money they have already spent. \n\nEdit: Paragraph formatting.",
"ELI5: In football, if you might have a team that only run plays from the playbook and sometimes they work but sometimes they don't make progress. Agile is basically like doing a quick huddle and then calling an audible after every play instead of *just* picking plays from the playbook.\n\nMost companies will do something like this naturally some of the time but if an organization says they are an \"agile environment\" it means they practice working like that more than they practice running plays out of a playbook.\n\nAfter you've done a couple of seasons w/ huddles and audibles (aka: agile) then you might end up running a lot of the same plays over and over again... but the agile principles of coming together as a team to assess the situation in front of you every day and not being afraid to modify the play from the playbook before running it is what makes an organization \"an agile environment\".\n\n--Robert",
"An environment in which your boss gives informal instructions about a project, makes frequent changes to definition and scope, and takes no responsibility when the project goes over budget.\n\nOh, that's not the definition?\n"
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5sa0qz | can someone honestly explain how a war with two countries with nuclear capabilities could ever be conducted? | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/5sa0qz/eli5_can_someone_honestly_explain_how_a_war_with/ | {
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"~~Most~~ Many countries that have nuclear capabilities signed a treaty saying they'd never ~~use nuclear weapons against another country~~ be the first to use them against another country. The damage done in WW2 against Japan was tremendous and we all know it's inevitable that one bomb falling would pretty much mean the end of the world. Edited since apparently actually explaining something as if you were talking to a 5 year old requires writing a dissertation. ",
"Most countries have a No First Use policy. \n\nFrom Wikipedia:\n > No first use (NFU) refers to a pledge or a policy by a nuclear power not to use nuclear weapons as a means of warfare unless first attacked by an adversary using nuclear weapons. Earlier, the concept had also been applied to chemical and biological warfare.\n\n > China declared its NFU policy in 1964, and has since maintained this policy. India articulated its policy of no first use of nuclear weapons in 2003.\n\n > NATO has repeatedly rejected calls for adopting NFU policy, arguing that pre-emptive nuclear strike is a key option, in order to have a credible deterrent that could compensate for the overwhelming conventional weapon superiority enjoyed by the Soviet Army in the Eurasian land mass. In 1993, Russia dropped a pledge against first use of nuclear weapons made in 1982 by Leonid Brezhnev. In 2000, a Russian military doctrine stated that Russia reserves the right to use nuclear weapons \"in response to a large-scale conventional aggression\".This is because the balance of forces was reversed — NATO is now enjoying a clear superiority in conventional weapons.",
"At first by proxy, this is what syria basically is, sides are involved but mostly with funding and not outright their armies. It can escalate to minor skirmishes that do not threaten much. \n\nBut the common theory is they really couldn't go to war. Not conflict, trade wars and proxxy wars would go up, international sanctions or resolutions to apply pressure and public image. But as far as rallying the troops. This is why the bigger nations have avoided major conflict with each other since ww2, the nuclear endgame is basically garenteed, especially since most of them are allied in such a fashion that the majority of the world's troops will be involved anyway. \n\n\nNow a smaller country like north Korea launching a nuke will not likely end the same way. A large country like usa or Russia could respond with enough conventional power to end it just as quickly with less danger. ",
"There are many different policies for the usage of nuclear weapons, and most countries have numerous different attack plans within those policies, so there's a lot of possible variation. It's very difficult to say how any war would go without actually having it happen.\n\nThe best way a nuclear war could go, and arguably the only way one could possibly be won, would be if somehow you could use your bombs but the enemies couldn't use their bombs. \n\nThere's a lot of ways to go about this, but the simplest is to just blow up your enemy's missiles and bombers while they are still on the ground. Once they get in the air they're a lot more difficult to destroy. Because of this, in a nuclear war, the side that shoots first has a big advantage- they start with all their bombs in the air, while the enemy's would all be on the ground scrambling to launch before they're destroyed. This was a big headache during the cold war- there was a lot of speculation that whoever shot first would 'win', insomuch as the war could be won, but nobody wanted to be the one to start it.\n\nThat's also the major reason why the US has been hesitant to go to a no first use policy. Think of nukes like guns- you have a big advantage if you can shoot the other guy first.\n\nAnother type of Preemptive Strike is a Decapitation strike- basically trying to kill everybody who has the authorization to launch a nuke before they get a chance to launch said nukes. \n\nThe counterpoint to this is Launch On Warning. Basically, when you see a bunch of nukes in the air coming towards you, you go ahead and launch everything you have before it gets destroyed on the ground. This has a lot of safety issues- there have been tons of false alarms where we thought attacks were incoming when they weren't. \n\nThe backup is a second strike, using hardened assets to retaliate against the enemy. While a lot of missiles and bombs are not able to withstand a nuclear strike, some silos are hardened enough, and there's still the third arm of the nuclear triad- submarines. Even with our technology today, nuclear submarines are very difficult to track and destroy. Even if a nation is turned to ash, their submarines can emerge days or weeks later to retaliate.\n\n\nToday, if two nuclear powers went to war, there are many ways it could go. It could have a bit of a leadup with conventional warfare followed by the usage of a tactical nuke or two on the battlefield. But eventually one side would launch the first strike.\n\nThe first strike would probably be a wave of ground-launched missiles, aimed at enemy missile silos, airbases, centers of government and military control, and anti-aircraft installations, with the principal aim of blunting the enemy's ability to retaliate and block the second wave, made of bombers.\n\nFrom that point on the targets depend on what the aggressor nation is targeting. Many plans only list military installations, but if a longer conflict is presumed other targets would also be included. First Industrial targets, then population centers.\n\nImportant targets would be struck multiple times. I believe Moscow in the cold war was the target of as many as 60 bombs.\n\nIf the enemy possesses nuclear submarines, what would follow would be a period of high alert as they are hunted down. It's not impossible that a small number of sub-based missiles could be dealt with through missile defense systems, assuming that the enemy didn't get their ground based missiles into the air to destroy those defense systems.\n\nThe initial exchange would take less than an hour. The whole thing would be over in a day or so.",
"This is an oversimplification, and yet I'm surprised not to see it here already.\n\nThat is exactly the point of having what is known as a nuclear deterrent - that is to say the fact that you have a nuclear arsenal basically means that another side who also has a nuclear arsenal will not use them on you because if they do, they will also be annihilated by yous in exchange. This is a doctrine called mutually assured destruction or mad for short. \n\nYes, it is literally called The Mad Doctrine on purpose.\n\nsource: have studied this both in college and at a previous job.\n\nedit: added source",
"There is a simple answer to this that everyone seems to ignore.\n\nOne side wants to win the war. \n\nNukes assure that doesnt happen, so nukes wont be used the way everyone imagines. \n\nNukes would be used when one side is so desperate that they dont care if they die too. By that point there is a huge chance that most of the nuclear capability of a country would already be removed. \n\nAlso, it may not seem like it, but for places like the USA most nukes shot at it wouldnt make it to their target (Which is one of the reasons why countries like the USA and Russia have so many nukes).\n\nIt wouldnt be like boom everyone dead. It would take hundreds of nukes to hit their target to bring something like the US military to its knees. \n\nNow the aftermath, that is a different story all together. ",
"A nuclear war would start from a diplomatic crisis, or a conventional war spilling over. \n\nIf we got into that situation again, the most likely reason for first launch would be if one side starts winning, and the other side is facing certain defeat (or, at least, loss of their nuclear forces.) At that point, the rationale is \"use it or lose it.\" \n\nIf there is a nuclear war, the most likely first launch would come from the LEAST stable country. Best case scenario in that case is its like India/Pakistan, and they have a very small stockpile that is quickly used up. The major powers would hopefully stay out of it. \n\nAgain, depends how stable everyone is feeling when humanity is literally looking at the collapse of civilization.\n\nThat means, not stable at all. ",
"India and Pakistan have been to war since acquiring nuclear capabilities. So it's happened.",
"They nuke each other, the end!\n\nIf you mean a non-nuclear war between 2 nations, they would both respect the threat of counter-annihilation so they wouldn't, and for the same reason I don't see any attacks against nuclear arsenals. Because if we bomb arsenals the victim would respond by launching their nukes before we bomb those out too.\n\nNot only is it a bad idea to use your own nuke, it's a bad idea to touch your enemies' nukes, if you find them. It might be better to hack it, disable it, and communicate with the enemy to return the disabled nuke as a show of good faith despite the conflict."
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48eph0 | if commodity prices are at a historic low, why do the costs of everyday goods seem unchanged? | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/48eph0/eli5_if_commodity_prices_are_at_a_historic_low/ | {
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"In general, you are more upset by prices rising than you are happy by prices falling. Because of this, supermarkets do their best to keep prices as stable as possible, keeping sales inflated when prices are down and cheaper than expected when prices are high, (profiting more when commodities are cheap, and less when they are expensive).\n\nThat and the fact that much of the cost is in transit/labor/sales/markup/advertising which didn't get any cheaper. ",
"Someone else here on Reddit came up with this explanation; I wish I could remember who so I could give due credit...but it goes sorta like this when referring to the price of gas (this point still translates well to other goods):\n\nYou go to the supermarket to buy the materials necessary to make a grilled cheese sandwich (gas). First you have to buy the bread (crude oil) for $1 then you buy the butter (processing) for another $1 and finally you buy the cheese (taxes) for yet another $1. So, you're grilled cheese costs you $3.\n\nNow, lets say the price of the bread (crude oil) has fallen by 50%, so now the bread costs you $.50. The overall price of the sandwich doesn't drop by half, it drops by .50 cents, and the sandwich now costs $2.50."
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2n41m4 | how is it legal for automotive manufacturers to put a huge paragraph in the smallest font on their commercials, and expect someone to read it all in 5 seconds? | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/2n41m4/eli5_how_is_it_legal_for_automotive_manufacturers/ | {
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"They \"provide\" the information. It is not their job to make sure you can read it, but to provide you the chance to read it.",
"It is legal because no governing body in the US has put a more stringent set of requirements on it, as there is very little demand for it. Any information listed on the commercial is easily attainable on the internet or through a quick call to the dealership. \n\nBesides, I don't think that there is any info there that is going to affect your purchase decision that would be obvious or disclosed during the purchase of the vehicle.",
"It presents the information, and if they made the font larger and gave more time, the commercial would be longer and less interesting",
"If you watch the commercial a hundred times and read a few words each time it is possible to get the entire text without making it ten minutes long. /Devil's_Advocate"
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6jkpe6 | how does a background investigation to get a job work? | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/6jkpe6/eli5_how_does_a_background_investigation_to_get_a/ | {
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"There are different kinds. Some just run your basic information to see if you have a record or warrants, etc. Others are more in depth and can include interviewing neighbors and family members. ",
"That sounds like a public records check. They run your name and SSN through a series of databases to see if criminal records match.",
"It usually consist of them checking your criminal history for felonies, driving record and sometimes your credit score. ",
"If you're applying for a government job with security clearances, they will send people out to interview people you know and do a thorough check. Otherwise, its just a simple records check.",
"When most people think of a background check they think of a simple criminal history check. In reality, a background check is much more than that. It’s the process by which you find your best candidate by looking at, yes, criminal records, but also education and employment history, civil records, references, etc. Each is a very important piece of the puzzle. What does a background check look for? \n \nA background check helps your company stay safe through the criminal history check. It helps ensure that applicants can do what they claim they can through employment and education verification. It verifies that applicants are who they claim to be and aren’t wanted internationally. Background screenings, background checks, pre-employment screenings – call them what you will, they help protect your company, your employees, and your clients. \n \nThere is no standard background check package because different industries, and even different companies within the same industry, will have different criteria regarding what constitutes an eligible candidate. Your company should have packages set up based on business necessity, packages that should be different for different types of jobs. Any executive position should be subject to more stringent testing than a basic minimum-wage employee. \n \nThe depth of your screening should reflect the risks arising from criminal misconduct in each specific position. When creating the packages, remember that if screening guidelines are too lenient you may hire criminals and welcoming unnecessary risks to your business, but if screenings are too stringent you may miss opportunities to hire well-qualified applicants who pose no threat – and you may even run afoul of the EEOC.\n \n*How long do screenings typically take and how are they done?*\n \nAs with anything, how long the screenings take depends on which specific service you choose and how that service is done. Many searches simply require the company to enter the relevant information into a database, yielding instant results. However, most services take longer due to the need for a live record search. A few services require a combination of database and live searches and some take a more unique approach.\n \nInstant, database-driven searches include criminal history searches, credit history, name and address history, national security lists, sex offender registry and SSN verification/trace searches, while live searches include county, state and federal criminal history.\n \nSome services require phone interviews. Those include education and employment verification as well as reference checks. How long each of these services takes also depends on a few other factors.\n \nAnother factor to consider is which company you choose. A company that has an interface with a county will take less time to search that court than a company that has to send someone to the physical courthouse. Then you have to consider where you are requesting the information from. Records from a Department of Motor Vehicles can be accessed instantly in many states, but can take three days in others.\n \nThe most important contributing factor (aside from how information is gathered) is the difference between hits and clears. For instance, many companies, that run a criminal database check, will know instantly if there is no record. However, depending on the type of search ordered, if the database returns a hit, the information may need to be verified before it can be passed on.\n \n________________________________________________________________________________________________________\n \n[Source](_URL_0_)",
"Your name and date of birth is used for criminal history checks.\n\nThey usually check the counties you've lived in based off your credit report.\n\nThere's no magic box or database that has everything. Those that do are incomplete and only good \"blind shotgun\" approaches.\n\nSSN is not used, anyone that has committed a crime can vouch that no one ever asked their SSN nor is any of that data stored on a public criminal record.\n\nSource: I was in the industry for almost 7 years.\n\nEDIT: I was running out the door for work when I typed this. What is stated above is the most common type for common jobs. Obviously, high level executives have a more detailed check. Anything dealing with children should include sex offender checks. Money position should include an analysis of credit history (not score.) Federal Government higher ups have their own stuff; this is why the private organization I worked for never bothered trying to get Federal bids most of the time because we couldn't match the type of searches already at their disposal.\n\nThere are crime indexes out there for regions and such and I have used them, the issue is any law enforcement database only contains arrest records and usually not court dispositions. My company abided by the Fair Credit Reporting Act which only allows us to report misdemeanor and felony convictions (not arrests) within a the last 7 years (probation and prison time counts are reportable if it is within the 7 years.)",
"If you're applying for a national security/federal/law enforcement job (contractors included) - security clearance jobs can/will include credit checks, investigations, FBI database searches, State database searches, social media, Poly, etc. After the investigations you will be interviewed about what they have found out (even if its not bad), to see if you are dishonest. This process takes time and can be stressful, you are not compensated in anyway until it is complete (99.999% of the time), and you start working.\n\nIf you were in this position, I doubt you would be asking this question here.\n\nLikely the answer you were seeking:\n\nYour average employer will probably just use _URL_0_ to find your social media accounts and see if your crazy/undesirable for their company. Spokeo will also include addresses, emails, phone numbers, the names of other people who live in your house, access to court rulings/judgements, etc. A membership is cheap/monthly for a company, and it covers anything relevant to an office worker in private industry, mechanic, retail, etc.\n\nbackground checks are COMPLETELY different for clearance jobs versus just regular jobs.\n\nSource: been through it all.",
"I always thought it was funny it took me 2 weeks for the background check as a quality Inspector and five minutes for an AR15.\n\nWhat all is involved im a firearm backgroumd check?",
"Oooo one where I can help. So basically when you sign that waiver you entitle the company or an agency that the company employs to perform a record search. This can often include education verification (literally just calling your school to check if your degree is real) as well as several database checks. They can obviously get much more thorough for high end positions but most background checks are done through databases. However, criminal records are stored at county courthouses in the u.s. So oftentimes agencies are forced to actually go to the courthouse and use public access computers with a list of several thousand names to search. Large companies have compiled these records into more thorough and up to date database but their methods are still pretty inefficient. Often the only identifier to match a person to a record is name and date of birth. If it is within 7 years of the date of the incident it will be reported on your search regardless of whether it's you or not as there often no other identifiers to prove that it isn't you. This industry causes a lot of problems for people looking for jobs even with tight regulations. I worked for an agency once crazy stuff",
"I work for a consumer reporting agency, or CRA, in the US. The type of background search that your employer orders usually has to do with the level of job for which you are applying.\n\nHeres the quick run down: the employer sends all your information to a CRA along with your signed disclosures. Then the CRA has teams call appropriate people to verify your employment history and education history. They take your residence infirmation and perform criminal background searches with the courts in those jurisdictions. Once everything is done, the CRA bundles it together in a report and sends it to your employer.\n\nA week is pretty nominal. Quick would be like 2 days, but even then it depends on what the employer cares about. Fur example, a broom pusher maybe just needs they're criminal history checked while a doctor needs to have their education and license also verified.\n\nIf you're an international applicant, the employer has to pay a shit load to verify outside the US and those take _URL_0_. military duty verification also takes forever, and the office that handles them has every right to refuse a verification. Makes things really difficult on us CRAs.",
"Just a few things to remember, you can actually go to (yes every single one of these) these websites that pull your personal info and background history and have them removed, after that go to your google location history and delete searches, words typed, voice recognition and recording, past history, same with most all other email places. Then go to your social media accounts delete those, as well as photos that tie you to anything, as well as usernames associated to you, remove those, but sadly you can't stop the city from displaying public information so that gos out the water. *But definitely don't block a business from doing online background checks by routing to a fake version of the service they have a contract with, or from accessing a city or state or county public records especially while they're searching for info about you!* (just umm take it from someone who might know a guy who kinda picked up a felony charge for being an idiot) ",
"How does a title make understanding of effort?",
"Apparently some places just claim to do it for some reason. I passed my background check at my current employer with my last name spelled incorrectly. We only found out about it when they tried to pay me and things didn't match up. ",
"For retail or customer service jobs it's more of a voluntary self-filter. I used to work with a guy who got fired for stealing money out of his cash register. The next week he got a job as a bank teller. ",
"Read [the Equal Opportunity Commission laws on using background checks](_URL_0_) Basically emplowers cant (or shouldnt) discrininate on your background record if the crimes arrested for or commited have no reasonable baring on the performance of the job at hand. ",
"Well when they did it for me it took about a month, pretty sure they also worked my phone and email address.\n\nCame and asked questions to my neighbors and family members, well as teachers. \n\nWell, that and the psychological test had certain questions that they used to reference, they'd ask me the same thing they'd ask people I know and if something didn't match there'd be problems lol.\n\nLuckily I'm a normal person so there weren't any issues.",
"As others have said it all starts with basic record checks to verify the information you're asked to provide (degrees, criminal history, possibly finances, residences, and employments). Each state either has a statewide law check they can run or individual counties are checked instead where there are no statewide agencies (CA for example). If they get a \"hit\" on a routine law check they'll follow up with the PD or Court in question for the details and disposition. If you've ever seen a person at the traffic court window with a laptop and stack of files and they're not at the Attorney window then chances are they're record searchers for these routine background check places.\n\nNow Federal Investigations are a little more complex. They'll still do all of the above however will also check DOD and other Federal Law Enforcement Agencies for record \"hits\". If you were ever fingerprinted in connection to a crime they will have a record of that, even if you were never convicted and/or told the record would be expunged (so don't lie). They will find it, and then you'll have to sit down with an Investigator that is going to confront you with this derogatory information and ask you why you lied about it on your form. Super awkward conversation and you'll feel like an idiot. \nDepending on the clearance level (Public Trust to TS/SCI) they'll either send out letters of inquiry to your prior residences/education/employers for confirmation or send actual Investigators in person to interview anyone and everyone possible to corroborate your information, all while attempting to unearth derogatory information you may be hiding. Never lie. The whole point is to identify potential sources of coercion for you, and by lying about it you're essentially saying \"I'm super not okay with anyone knowing this about me\" to an adjudicator.\n\n**AND A MESSAGE TO ALL MILITARY RECRUITS: DON'T LET YOUR RECRUITER FUCK UP YOUR SF-86** Make sure you answer the questions fully and with full honesty, and don't listen to them tell you something doesn't apply or convince you to leave that time you smoked pot off your security questionnaire. Spoiler alert: they have a quota and just want you in as fast as possible. Double spoiler alert: *it doesn't matter*. If I had a nickel for every recruit I've interviewed that had either smoked pot or *wasn't even a citizen of the United States yet and their parents were illegal residents* that was still able to get into the military and still able to get a clearance then I'd have, like... well probably only $5 but still.\n\nSource: I do these awkward confrontational interviews for a living.\n\n",
"I work in this business, its actually dead simple.\n\nWe do a check of criminal databases for cases, we also call any previous employers you listed for references. Sometimes we just get the basics from previous employers and sometimes we have a short list of questions.\n\nSome companies also do a credit check, for this we have partnered with Transunion, we can pull that information in seconds with our system.\n\nWe also do sex offender and terrorist watch list checks, its all dependent on the type of package the client chooses when ordering.\n\nThe criminal checks can be the item that takes longest, aside from getting direct employer references. We always double check to confirm the criminal cases that come up.",
"My girlfriend worked for a background screening agency for two years. She had to physically go to the courts and pull records. She'd itemize any information found on the applicant with court dates, crimes, judgments, and severity of punishments and then she'd bring it back to the PI who would add it to additional information he had found. This information was then given to the potential employer for whatever they would do with it. ",
"This depends largely on the country and state you're in as laws vary. In the U.S., they'll normally research to see if you have any federal warrants or charges and then they'll check the records of whatever state you lived in during the past 7 years. Some do all 50 states but it gets expensive and time consuming. They also check the national sex offender database. ",
"I don't see mentioned in other posts but background check will also include the employer googling your name or variations of it/your email address name. That is sometimes more damaging than the background report. ",
"When I got my job with the feds with a very low level security clearance, I had federal officer come to my home and interview me, come to my new place of work to interview me, visit my neighbors and interview them about me, and visit my former employers to, you guessed it, interview them about me.\n\n\nThis agent was very personable and did a excellent job of making me feel comfortable. Which is a tactic to get people under investigation to open up. When getting a security clearance, it's like /u/NinjaJediSmurf said, it doesn't matter if you've done illegal things in the past. What matters is that you aren't doing them now, and you aren't lying about your past history. Don't lie.\n\n\nOn the flip side, I've got a buddy that has a high level security clearance and works for the DoD. When he got his job, he had two days on the polygraph. His description of the event sounds very stressful. He was locked in a white room with sensors strapped to his body facing a white wall. His interviewer was behind asking a series of question. It sounded unfun.\n",
"I'm curious. When your applying for a job of Web Developer or a Graphic Designer at a tech based company, how deep do they do the background investigation or do they even do it at all?",
"\nFor most jobs, it is a credit check and criminal record check.\n\nFor more serious jobs, they will ask you for every address you've lived at since you left home, the names of at least five character references, the names of all your former employers, and so forth.\n\nThen they call each one of these people, your old landlords, neighbors, etc. to confirm the information is correct and also ask their opinion of you (you have consented to this, of course, on the 30-page form you have filled out).\n\nSource: Have filled out said 30-page form, and also have been contacted as an employer reference.",
"I live in and applied for a job in NJ and got the option of receiving a report of the background check. Not sure if this is a US/Federal thing or NJ so your option to receive the report may vary. Here is what I received:\n\nSocial Security Verification - checks that the SS Number has been associated with places I have reportedly lived.\n\nNational Criminal File - no information on this besides that they checked it.\n\nFelony Including Misdemeanor for 2 places I have lived and 1 place where I haven't and 1 for where I have worked previously. They had some bad info in my file for where I have lived.\n\nMotor Vehicle Report - the job I applied for requires me to drive between locations. Only checked my current state - I assume this is because I have lived in this state for 7+ years?\n",
"When I was an accounts manager at a consulting firm, we could turn around background checks overnight. It's all automated records checks unless you need some sort of government clearance.",
"Oh, I can answer this! It's my job! Basically, we use the answers to your questions to track down criminal history. All employers have different standards, so some background checks are more stringent than others. Also, some employers will still hire you, even if you have something on your record. It depends on if it relates to your job or not. \n\nWe do it quickly because a lot of criminal records are stored in databases that are either free, or we pay to access. There are only a handful of counties that still require clerk assistance to search, like the entire state of New Hampshire. Those are notorious for taking two weeks or longer.\n\nAlso, schools and companies are not required by law to release your records. We can call to ask about your degree or employment, but they don't have to answer. Always keep a copy of your W-2s, releiving letters, degrees, transcripts, etc, just in case. ",
"A relative of mine does background checks for a living and I have worked for that person's company. \n\nWhat they get depends on the purpose of the background check. Some are just a CYA for liability purposes (such as a company hiring actors to appear in a commercial and want to make sure they don't have a sordid past that will reflect badly on the advertiser), whereas some need to actually be thorough and make sure they're not putting people at risk (like a church investigating a possible youth pastor hire). \n\nOften, the company will be asked to call references and to verify education. These tasks are usually no problem, unless the school has closed. Every college that goes out of business is required to leave its student records accessible for these purposes. They often set aside funds in the closure to pay another institution to look after the records. \n\nIn most countries, the US included, there is no centralized database of criminal activity. Most states keep these records county by county, and some aren't even online yet. The industry standard is to check the last three counties of residence or the last five to ten years worth of addresses (depending on what the client wants). Some states make it difficult to access misdemeanor records, but felonies are readily available. \n\nThe client might also want a civil suit check. It can be revealing if an applicant has evictions, or has been sued for theft in the absence of criminal charges, or a thousand other civil actions. Like criminal checks, record keeping depends largely on each state and county. In some areas, you or a messenger has to retrieve the records from the court in person. \n\nThere are also credit checks and security clearances, but the business I worked for never handled those. ",
"Jesus look at all these super long answers!\n\nThis is how it works for me:\n \n- Interview person referred by HR \n \n- Like person, decide to hire person\n \n- 2 months later after person turns out to be crap, have HR ask if I checked references... did not. \n \n- Receive smack down by HR\n \n- Let person go \"I'm sorry, it's just not working out\"\n \n- Interview person referred by HR\n \n- Like person, decide to hire person\n \n- 2 months later, person is still good, still forgot to check reference\n \n- Receive smack down by HR\n \n- Rinse, repeat\n \nHR usually has fairly good policies regarding reference checks... but... as the hiring manager it is up to me to ensure I follow HR's guidelines provided they are not doing the reference checks themselves. Because we know the details of the job best, we usually check references.\n\nTrouble with references is, it's hard to get useful information from them. If you sucked it doesn't mean your reference will say bad things about you. That being said, if you were awesome, that also doesn't mean references will say nice things about you. In fact, they may say nice things about you to help get you a job because they don't want you knocking on their door again. They may also say bad things about you because when I called, I got the one person in the office that actually hates you. \n\nHiring good people is really challenging. ",
"Sometimes the background investigations are wrong, too, depending on where the company gets it. \n\nI have a twin, and I've had more than 5 background checks. Quite a few have had both mine AND her information on it, looking like I was working three jobs at once and living in two states at the same time for a good amount of years, as well as attending two colleges at the same time in two states. \n\nI only know this because the state I live allows me to see the background check the employer gets, and I'm always like oh what the hell?!",
"Oohh! I did this for a living!\n\nI did background checks on chemists, armored car drivers, etc.\n\nYou fill out your application including work history or include your resume. Your prospective employer then sends it to me. They can get everything including credit check, criminal background, past employment history (most common), and education (also most common).\n\nI then call your previous employers and ask them about you. Some tell me you were great, some call you an asshole, some require your signature to speak about you (which you signed on your application), others transfer you to HR where they have 2-3 generic responses: terminated, not eligible/eligible for rehire, gave notice, etc. Typically not eligible/eligible for rehire is legal HR code for if you were a good employee. Sometimes I had to verify responsibilities, hours, and pay. If you're not confident that your boss was tell people you were an assistant manager, don't put it on your resume. It makes you look terrible when your previous boss says, \"no. He was just a janitor.\"\n\nIf the company closed you're still not safe. I'll call the business next door and ask if they remember you, know anyone who used to work next door, etc. the Chmaber of Commerce will remember all small business owners in a little town and give me their contact info. I will look up who owned the McDonalds franchise that closed, cross check the property address, use the white pages to find the previous owner, and call them at home and ask about you.\n\nI do the same for your education. I can call your HS or check a school's registrar database for your degree. If you put HS diploma and you got a GED I had to mark \"No high school diploma.\" This one always killed me because one particular application just had a check box for \"graduated from HS?\" If it's a diploma mill or you never graduated I make a note of that.\n\nFor scientists/chemists (pharma company) I would have to call references. I would speak to a grad student's professors. They were the meanest most brutal people. \"Student doesn't really stand out. Average.\" \"No personality, wouldn't let them work for me.\" Just brutal personal attacks. All other references were obviously the persons friends and they gave the answers you'd expect. \n\nBackground checks are automatic along with credit history. If you turn out to be a child molester we research that to confirm it's you because the system is fairly flawed.\n\nSome companies/people would put through \"rush\" requests which was basically just a note to gather all the info you can and send it within 24 hours. Most times we would have 3-5 days. \n\nIt was an interesting job and I have a compulsive need to pursue things to the very end so it was good for that. However I don't like \"gotcha moments.\" They don't bring me the joy they bring others. \n\nIronically the company realized I had IT experience so they switched me over to IT work but wouldn't promote me officially (read: pay me appropriately) because I didn't have a degree. \n\nEdit: This was years ago that I did this job. Social media was a thing but we didn't really check it and submit anything from it. I do know of several hospital systems that do and will check for anyone getting privileges. Keep your stuff private. It's just good common sense.\n\nEdit 2: I didn't hire anyone. I just collected the data. I don't know what the end user did with the data or what specific criteria they cared most about.\n\nEdit 3: I'm going to bed. I'm sorry if I didn't answer your question. I tried but my email doesn't show all reply's on mobile. I'm done.",
"The DOJ Investigator asked how my grandmother felt about me living with a man before marriage. How is that relevant??",
"Everyone I ever met with a high clearance (Siop/esi) IIRC, was straight off the farm never had done s*** and probably never will do s*** and we're boring as f*** for the most part.",
"It would be good if potential employees could do a similarly detailed search for the company they are about to be hired by. Most companies are really cess pools when you look beyond the professional printed 'company values' and mission statement on the wall. What's the companies credit rating like? I need to know that you have the ability to pay me, so lets see all those tax records!",
"Based on my last background check, it's a roll of the dice. I was told that I'd lied about my employment dates from a previous employer. I had stated I had worked for 'company' from 2011 - 2014. They came back and said I actually worked for said company from 2014 - present, which is funny because 'company' was very publicly acquired by a fortune 10 company in 2014 and ceased to exist. ",
"I work at a place that does background investigation and employee screenings but I do billing and almost exclusively stuff envelopes ):",
"I worked at an insurance company some years ago where my responsibilities were to run Motor Vehicle Reports. the insurance company I worked at insured car dealerships and if you wanted to get a job at any of the dealerships we insured i would run a background check on you and there were a bunch of guidelines to follow, for example if the person had 2 moving violations (signal, red light etc) in the last 3 years, they were out. this was only if you had a job at the dealership that required you moving a car. a lot of people though probably don't know why they didn't get jobs at these companies though.",
"Many many years ago I worked in a job in the military (UK), which required me to check on security containers to make sure they'd been locked, or weren't compromised (people would write safe combinations under desks, circle dates on wall calendars etc). This meant that the 'need to know' protocol didn't apply to me and my colleagues. I was required to undertake an 'enhanced positive vetting' procedure; my family, previous workmates etc. were interviewed about my character. It seemed that the emphasis was on honesty rather than having a spotless record.",
"You want to just go ahead and tell us what you did?",
"UK resident here, my father has a very high clearance for working as a civilian IT contractor for government and military institutions.\n\nThe clearance he got took a year to process, he attended several interviews in undisclosed locations and the questions they asked were from checks that they had already completed. He said he heard nothing for a year and assumed he failed until one day it came through.\n\nFor example I remember him saying that they asked about what he did in places like Italy from holidays over 20 years ago (implying mafia/organised crime connections) and also queried interests from browsing history at his home, he remembers things the interviewer asked flagging in his mind at the time like \"shit they've dug deep\". They went through a lot and he already had 3 levels of clearance before that.\n\nHe knows for a fact that they referenced and checked all family and friends as well as their internet history/abroad travels/spending habits/debts etc... etc...\n\nHe won't tell me anymore than that but he does mention sometimes that \"people are watching\" (has mentioned the likes of GCHQ) which is why he keeps his internet locked down and reminds my younger siblings who live with him about social media privacy, people coming to the house etc...\n\nHe has never talked about what he does at work and refuses to say exactly where he works, but due to the nature of his IT position he deals with classified material and he has said he and his colleagues sometimes \"catch wind\" of the projects on the site and of course they have ideas but he's always refused to be specific. I know it is weapons related and so would anyone because the public company he contracts for has a lot of MOD contracts.\n\nHe said it was OK to post this insight as nothing is secret.\n\nIt's the main reason he earns in to the high thousands a day I guess, that's about 5 years of top clearance and only a handful of people get there.",
"[The Lie Behind The Lie Detector](_URL_0_) is absolute essential reading for anyone preparing for a polygraph as part of a background investigation...\nIt's completely ad free, and aims solely to inform the reader of the pitfalls they're about to face. No matter what your background, or likelihood of passing, I cannot recommend this information enough...\nLie detectors are a complete sham, that prey on the uninformed. Don't get conned by these charlatans.\nEnd rant...\nI'd be happy to answer any tl;dr questions you may have. It's a rather long book..."
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2hub6h | if a human barks at a dog, can they tell the difference from a real bark? what would they think the human is saying to them? | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/2hub6h/eli5_if_a_human_barks_at_a_dog_can_they_tell_the/ | {
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"When you scream in pain or fear, what are you saying? ",
"Every dog that has ever come up to sniff my food has backed away very cautiously after I growled at it.",
"OK, so as an aside to this, does a dog from Germany( or anywhere) understand what a dog from Australia (or somewhere different) is barking at it. Is there a universal dog \"language\"? Maybe if there is, then we are able to approximate it enough to communicate at some sort of base level.",
"They are very good at hearing and will probably notice a difference, but humans can also be good at imitation. So somebody who worked on it could probably trick a dog, but they're hardly be able to communicate effectively. Barking is usually just a means to get attention to the more important thing for dogs: body language. That's where 99% of communication is found.",
"I can make my dogs run for the fence barking by using an alert bark. It's a short loud abrupt rrrrruff. It works with most dogs. It's the exact bark they use with each other when they think they've heard a stranger approaching. I growl at my dogs too when they beg, or are bothering me, works a treat. Howling can get them to join in too but they don't fall for it after a while. Oh and I often make over people's dogs bark for fun by barking. My bark is very convincing so people don't even realise it was me that started their dog off. :-)",
"How to speak Dogish:\n\n1 bark = Yes.\n\n2 barks = Let me smell your butt.\n\n3 barks = Squirrel."
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1sah2m | how donations fund and help "research." | I recently donated some money to a Cystic Fibrosis foundation in support of a friend with the disease. What exactly does this money help? How does it help it? Does it just buy better equipment in the labs or is it something totally different? | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/1sah2m/eli5_how_donations_fund_and_help_research/ | {
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"Equipment, salaries, the overall operation, and usually, the bureaucracy."
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37qh7q | what are the advantages/disadvantages to a high displacement four cylinder compared to a low displacement six cylinder? | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/37qh7q/eli5what_are_the_advantagesdisadvantages_to_a/ | {
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"You forgot a large detail in your comparison. The Audi B5 S4's engine is turbocharged. The V6 configuration saves some space which was used for a turbocharger to increase power output.\n\n\n\nA 2.6L turbocharged engine can produce a larger power output than a 2.5L non turbocharged engine while keeping the consumption similar when you're not flooring the gas pedal."
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3azf9u | drop shipping. | This weird dude at work was talking to me about drop shipping and wasn't doing the best job at explaining it, but the concept itself seemed pretty interesting. | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/3azf9u/eli5_drop_shipping/ | {
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"I work for a pet food company. To us, drop shipping means instead of shipping to the customer,we set it to be held at the nearest warehouse and a local sales rep picks up the product, or the customer picks it up themselves. Not sure if that's what you meant..",
"It lets you sell stuff you don't have without ever having to touch it.\n\nLet's say you're selling TVs. You can set up a website or an infomercial to sell the TVs. Once you have the money, you give it to the the TV company and they send the product directly to the customer.",
"Let's say you have a business selling automotive parts online. In a normal business, you would order parts from a distributor, keep them in a warehouse, and when someone bought a part from you, you would ship it to them. But if you were drop shipping, you wouldn't have a warehouse. Instead when a customer places an order, you'd then call up the distributor, and pay them to ship the item directly to the customer. ",
"A Manufacturer makes widgets. At a cost of $15 each including shipping costs, there is plenty of profit for them. But this Manufacturer doesn't want to deal with the general public.\n\nSo a customer pays me $20 for a widget. I pay $15 to the manufacturer who has the widget, and they send it to the customer.\n\nI get $5 profit, and I don't have to deal with inventory and extra shipping costs."
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3h7yuf | how is a computer programmed to *not* play a game optimally? (chess, for example) | For reference, on _URL_0_, you can play against the machine. You must choose a "level" to play on from 1-8. How is the programming different between each of these levels? | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/3h7yuf/eli5_how_is_a_computer_programmed_to_not_play_a/ | {
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" Many programs work by searching through thousands or even millions of possible moves. Not just what move is next, but what will happen after that, and what will happen after that. When you reduce the computer's level, you tell it to examine fewer possible moves, less far into the future, before making its decision. ",
"You can look at the [GNU Chess Engine](_URL_1_) if you want to know more and can read C Code. (Alternative: _URL_0_)",
"Computer chess has two main parts: an evaluation function (\"how good is this board position?\") and a way to look into the future to find likely moves. Then it combines them: \"what's the worst possible move my opponent can make, and then what's my best response to that?\" (that answer tells me the best possible outcome I could hope for after 2 half-moves. But not necessarily a likely one).\n\nSo already there's at least two knobs to turn to control its strength: we can tell it not to look so far into the future, and we can make its evaluation function more incorrect. Realistically, there are many more knobs. We can limit the time the computer has to think, whether it can think during your turn, how much memory it has for remembering answers it's already calculated, how perfectly it plays opening book moves, what it means for a legal move to be worth considering, how many cpu cores it gets, and so on. \n\nSo level 8 is the system playing at full strength with as much resources as the website is willing to give it, then the lower levels are just combinations of these types of settings that the developers chose to handicap the system.",
"A computer basically plays a game of chess by looking at all (or some, depending on the kind of strategy) possible moves, many turns ahead. The AI would assign \"points\" to each board state. The higher the points the better the game is.\n\nIt can then move in a way that makes it most likely to win or least likely to lose by going to the path with the highest points.\n\nHowever, the number of possible moves are roughly exponential the farther you look ahead. Computer has limited power so it takes time to find all of them.\n\nEasy mode AI can work simply by limiting time to think or turns to check. Randomness and blunder can be deliberately added, too.\n\nUPDATE:\n\nA tricky part is how the points are assigned in each state. The number of pieces (with King=1000 points, because you lose if he is dead) would be simplest, but then there are positions of each piece too.\n\nI used to do Othello/Reversi AI for a school project. Changing the position value alone (adding more points to the corners and edges) makes the AI considerably stronger, equivalent to about 2-level increase against a commercial video game. I did not even change the algorithm.\n\nNow that I thought about it, easy AI may also use a different board value pattern. Similar to how some rookies think that chess pawns are always low-value and use them up without thinking much.\n\nSource: did this for class project in AI. Now studying PhD in \"CS\"."
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30m2k0 | why does a game like gta5 have to have "fake" cars (like a fake audi r8 or bugatti) but other games, like forza or need for speed, can use the real logos and looks of real cars and car brands? | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/30m2k0/eli5_why_does_a_game_like_gta5_have_to_have_fake/ | {
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"Licensing, you have to pay to use real brands. ",
"Forza and Need for Speed license their cars, meaning that they pay to be able to use those brands. GTA started with little to no money, so instead they parodied cars, which brought us such lovelies as the Patriot (Hummer), the Stallion (Mustang), Sabre (Cutlass) and so on.\n\nNow, it's merely a matter of tradition, and a matter of image.\n\nWhile Forza and Need for Speed would essentially be advertising for your company (if the stats are realistic) by essentially showing how cars match up to their competitors, a game like Grand Theft Auto would be a double edged blade. Sure, it could compare cars against the competition, but at the same time no one wants their brand to be shown as the in-game brand of choice for drug dealers, pimps and murderers.\n\nNot to mention simply being connected to GTA would stir controversy.",
"I once read somewhere that car manufactures demand, in their licensing contracts, that their models can't be shown while being damaged. That's why, in for example Need for Speed, no matter how hard you crash you won't see any or little damage. ",
"Not all brands want to be associated with car jacking, pimpin' (because it ain't easy), guns, etc.\n\nIf NFS included flame throwers and hookers, they might not have real logos.",
"It's probably not worth the licensing costs, using the real brand names probably wouldn't add enough to the game to justify the cost.",
"A lot of cars in the GTA franchise are self parodies or puns of the \"real\" thing. A common example is the UberMacht XS (the GTA equivalent to the BMW M3). The word UberMacht in German is wordplay for \"Make Superior\" and is meant to act as a parody on the stereotype that drivers of BMW (a *German* luxury brand) think they are superior to the common man and are made so by their ownership of a BMW. \"XS\" is wordplay for \"excess\" where Rockstar's intention is to attack the notion that BMW, and luxury brands in general, bloat their cars with an excess of unnecessary features and faders for little apparent reason other than \"Look what *OUR* car can do!\". This is seen where the base model of the XS, the \"Sentinel\" reflects a normal modern day BMW 3-Series whereas the XS reflects a Sentinel/3-Series that has a much sportier body trim, a rear wing, and hardtop convertible roof (one of only two cars that has such in the entire game)\n\nI think that even *if* Rockstar had **FREE** access to licenses, they would rather have their parody cars in the game. Seeing as many characters in GTA, and the franchise in general, are virtual hyper-exaggerations of stereotypic psychoanalyses existing in reality. GTA has always been the game that has meant to piss off the most amount of people possible with the most amount of subtle psychological references, and to Rockstar; having fictitious parody branding in the virtual world is their equivalent of poking fun of ever aspect of human identity: from the house you own, to the clothes you wear, the activities you do, and yes; even the car you drive"
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6h5vf1 | how do pilots who speak different languages communicate with each other / air traffic control? | Is there an interpreter or something, or is the language barrier not really an issue? How does this work? | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/6h5vf1/eli5_how_do_pilots_who_speak_different_languages/ | {
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"All pilots are required to know how to speak English, as are the people in the control tower.\n\nThat way, everybody has a language they can all communicate in.",
"They all speak English\n\nThere are a few other languages allowed but they're only used over countries speaking those languages and they will also speak English\n\nFor example French air traffic control may speak French to French pilots, but will also speak English to anyone who's wishes to speak English. ",
"There is a specific list of English phrases all pilots must know - called Aviation English. It is designed to cover almost any situation and even designed to minimise any issues accents can cause.\n\nSome pilots and air traffic controllers still speak their native language regularly but when required can use Aviation English.",
"As others have said, English is the international language of aviation, and there are some specific phrases that pilots are required to know in order to be able to communicate in English.\n\nHowever, there are two important pieces of information missing:\n\n- Not all airports use English. Some smaller airports which are mostly used by private hobby pilots use the local language. Some airports use a mix of English and the local language. Each country publishes a list of all the airports within the country, with a load of information about each airport, and one piece of information that's published is which language is spoken at each airport. For example, at many smaller French airports, air traffic control only work during normal working hours, but after air traffic control is closed, the airport still remains open but all communication is in French. This information is published to pilots by the French authorities.\n\n- Even when the language is English, some pilots and controllers insist on using the local language. There was an accident in France many years ago (sorry, I don't remember the details and don't have time to find them right now) where a factor in the accident was that the French pilot was speaking French to the French air traffic controller. The air traffic controller made a mistake and cleared a British aircraft to take off when the French aircraft was still on the runway. Had the British pilot been able to understand the communication between air traffic control and the French pilot, he probably would have realised the mistake and questioned the instruction to take off, but because he didn't understand what was going on with the other aircraft, he had no way of knowing the runway was occupied, and followed the air traffic controller's incorrect instruction to take off."
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2uvmi2 | what would happen if you took several months of birth control at once? | Alternatively, what would happen if you were pregnant and did this?
This didn't happen, we're just curious. | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/2uvmi2/eli5_what_would_happen_if_you_took_several_months/ | {
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"It wouldn't be fatal, the body can handle sudden increases in these kinds of chemicals sense it makes and expects to dispose of it often. You could expect strange things to occur though, your stomach won't appreciate it one bit and it's likely you would puke most of it out. It's unlikely but it can cause an extreme panic attack like symptoms at random. It's obviously not recommended to do sense this could easily wreck havoc on your natural balance. It will not work as a contraceptive.",
"In essence that is what the morning after pill is: a much higher dose of daily birth control pills aimed at keeping you from ovulating. So if you take several doses of birth control at once, you will (depending on where you are in your cycle) not ovulate. You will also probably feel pretty goddamn sick because the human body is not used to handling all of those hormones at once. If you are already pregnant it won't really do much apart from making you feel awful. The hormones in birth control pills are designed to stop ovulation and don't really have an effect once the egg has already been released. "
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62wabp | entitlement as commonly used today | I get that entitlement means to be entitled to something, but what is the something that's often implied in today's rhetoric? | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/62wabp/eli5_entitlement_as_commonly_used_today/ | {
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"People often call someone entitled if their privileges/etc. prevent them from seeing the struggle of others and/or cause them to refuse to sympathize. It's basically being a jerk about how good you have it. \n\nAt least, that's how I've seen it used in a social rhetoric context. ",
"My understanding is that it refers to the belief that you \"deserve\" something without working for it or without actually deserving it. It's pretty subjective ",
"I'll give examples: \n\n* A videogame is released to the public, and it has some bugs, which of course will take some time to fix. If you go to the forums associated with that game, you may see people demanding an immediate fix, and even verbally abusing the devs they think are responsible for the bugs. These people are \"entitled.\"\n\n* You post your question here, and instead of the detailed answers that you're looking for, you get some one-liner speculation answers, or people clearly not knowing the answer but posting anyway. So you demand that only experts answer your question. According to the ELI5 rules, yes, only valid answers should be posted, but the internet doesn't owe you anything so if you belittle or dismiss the people who put in an effort to answer (even if it wasn't good), that may be interpreted as entitlement.\n",
"In politics it means expecting that some goods are services will always be made available to you. E.g. you are entitled to have the fire department come and extinguish your house when it is on fire. You are entitled to a fair trial.\n\nMore controversial, are you entitled to food and water? Shelter? Healthcare?\n\nEntitlements refer to goods and services that the government is obligated to provide to it's citizens."
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1sszwi | what would america be like if we were/remained isolationist? | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/1sszwi/eli5_what_would_america_be_like_if_we/ | {
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"I think that if we isolated our military to just defending our land and trade transport we would be much better off. The military could still employee large numbers teaching them the beneficial skill sets and helping people advance their lives without sending them off to foreign lands to war and occupy. \n\nIf this causes imports like oil to surge in price all the better. Pain and necessity breed innovation and invention. "
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48gtr4 | what would happen if leap day didn't exist? | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/48gtr4/eli5_what_would_happen_if_leap_day_didnt_exist/ | {
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"The seasons would slowly shift around. If there wasn't a leap year, today would have been March 2nd - the calendar would be off by one day. In 4 years, the calendar would be off by 2 days. In 120 years the calendar would be off by a whole month - so for example instead of winter being from December to February, it would be from January to March. Taking this to even more extremes, in 700 years winter would be from June to August."
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3izl0h | i recently learned about 8k displays. does science know of a specific goalpost where the human eye won't be able to see a difference in quality anymore? (more pixels) | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/3izl0h/eli5_i_recently_learned_about_8k_displays_does/ | {
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"It changes with distance and screen size. There are many charts, for those with 20/20 vision. I like this version of [the chart](_URL_0_), because it shows the screen size/distance relationship for several resolutions. It doesn't include a line for 8k, but you can probably make a reasonably good estimate given the angles for 2k and 4k. ",
"For mobile displays (which I'm assuming you're interested in as an 8k screen was recently prototyped)\n\nScreens past 1080p and to a lesser degree quad HD (1440P) are currently being experimented with virtual reality. While any increase in resolution between these screens are extremely hard to notice, if you add a cardboard or other VR headset with lenses to it it essentially stretches the screen over a large portion of your vision.\n\nThis makes pixels very easy to distinguish and thus pushes for higher resolution screens to help remedy this issue (partially known as the screen door effect)\n\nFor flat screens we use a measurement of PPI (pixels per inch) to measure quality\nFor VR since the screen is \"stretched\" over our vision we measure it in PPD (pixels per degree [of our vision])\n\nWe have just about exhausted increasing perceived quality in PPI but we are a very long way from exhausting perceived quality in the PPD region (there are many estimates of what might be required, most of them well over a 16k resolution).\n\nTL;DR Unless you are using image distorting optics (VR lenses/magnifiers) there should be almost no benefit over 1080p in terms or quality/sharpness."
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4gqckf | if double jeopardy doesn't allow a person to be tried twice for the same crime even if there is new evidence, why are appeals allowed? | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/4gqckf/eli5_if_double_jeopardy_doesnt_allow_a_person_to/ | {
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"They aren't the same thing.\n\nAppeals are requests that a higher court take a look at the trial to make sure that everything was conducted properly and that the decision was correct.\n\nIt isn't a new trial per se... so much as a continuation.",
"It is because the justice system is slanted to favor the defendant, not the State.\n\nThe point of the double jeopardy prohibition is to prevent the State from trying a person over and over again for the same crime. Doing so would put such a burden on the defendant that they may very well just plead guilty to get it to stop; a trial is both deeply disruptive and expensive for a defendant and the prosecution doesn't bear either of those burdens. The idea is that to minimize that burden, the State gets one try - if they fail then the defendant doesn't have to worry about persecution.\n\nThis prohibition does not go in reverse. If the courts believe that there was a mistake in the guilty verdict (be it from new evidence or a procedural error) the defendant 100% can get a new trial to try and defend their innocence again.",
"I'm not understanding where you see a correlation. Double jeopardy was instituted to keep the courts from just trying someone over and over until they got the result they wanted. There are exceptions to the rule, such as a kidnapping/murder case where the perpetrator took the victim across state lines; in that case they could be tried both on a state level and a federal level. It is a good thing for our system in a lot of ways. Not only does it help to stem abuse as I mentioned, it also means that the prosecution needs to do their jobs the first time. The burden of proof is, and SHOULD BE, on the prosecution. If they're going to imprison someone or worse, then the burden is theirs to prove that it is justified to do so. \n\nAppeals are a completely different entity. You're not being charged again or tried again, you're getting a chance to argue that something was done incorrectly or didn't happen the way it legally should have. You are asking a higher court to review what happened during your trial and ascertain if it meets the standards set forth by the justice system and the constitution. ONLY the defendant gets to appeal. The prosecution does not get any appeals. They get one shot to convict you for any one crime. \n\nUnless you were sentenced to death, appeals are not automatically granted. You have to show there was either an error or some sort of misconduct that had a serious impact on the results of the trial. You can argue that the state did not meet the standard for evidence to support a conviction, but those appeals are rarely won, partly because the appellate courts only read transcripts and review the case, they don't hear any first hand testimony from witnesses at the original trial unless there is some new piece of evidence being allowed in. "
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5szx75 | what makes music sound good? what causes it to release dopamine in the brain? | im asking about the process that happens between the time you listen to the musical piece (anything good to the listener) and until it feels good. what happens in between? why are specific tones, frequencies and pitches sync with the brain's pleasure center? especially if you hear music for the first time | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/5szx75/eli5_what_makes_music_sound_good_what_causes_it/ | {
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"Here's one theory...\n\nMusic is communication, just like a conversation. The frequencies used in music to convey emotion are [similar in pattern](_URL_0_) to the frequencies used in speech to convey the same emotions. \nSo for example when we hear a sad song, the notes and their corresponding frequencies are mimicking the patterns we'd hear in the phrases used by a person who was talking about something sad. And differences in Eastern and Western musical scales is indicating the difference in frequency and cadence of the common languages of those regions.",
"1. When we expect something and we get it, it feels good. Music is made primarily up of patters, and when the pattern yields a certain set of notes that you expected to hear, it feels good. Imagine striking the keys of a piano descending order and making a full octave. It's not a stretch to say that the final note it what makes it. If the last note were to be something disharmonious however, that would pretty much ruin the progression.\n\nA single melody isn't the whole picture though, there are patterns of expectation and reward on smaller and larger scales. One might argue that the notes themselves yield a micro pattern of expectation and reward. An a note gives way to a c note, etc. the song as a whole also follows a pattern. If y hear a certain progression of notes, the listener expects to hear directly afterwards another certain progression of notes. this is most likely why listening to a song after the tenth time playing sometimes feels better than that first time. When we expect something and we get it it makes us happy.\n\nSurprise also plays a role too. When we expect something and we get something different, we also like it. We don't want to get bored. This is why 99.99% of music is a carful mix of repetition, expectation/reward, and surprise.",
"Others have attempted to answer your question regarding the biological processes by which music is interpreted by the brain as *music* rather than just a collection of repetitive sounds.\n\nBut I don't see anyone taking a stab at explaining why certain sounds are \"pleasant\" or \"unpleasant.\" It turns out that there is a fairly wide range of diversity between cultures on that point. I'm not talking about the contrast between, say, hardcore punk and baroque fugues. Distinctions between harmony and counterpoint aside, both of those are firmly located in the Western musical tradition and are largely indistinguishable in terms of their musical theory. Their \"opinions\" as to what sounds \"happy\" and what sounds \"sad\", for instance, are basically identical. Both of those genres have far more to do with each other than either has to do with, say, Eastern European polyphonic vocal traditions, which make significant use of intervals that Western music, for the most part, deliberately avoids. Or some Indonesian traditions which use instruments intentionally designed in such a way that when they are properly tuned, they produce the same kind of frequency beats that are the hallmarks of what defines an instrument as being *out* of tune in the Western tradition. \n\nSo yes, we have a pretty good idea as to what happens, biologically/neurologically, when we hear sounds/music that we consider to be pleasant. But exactly *what* sounds/music any particular individual or culture perceives to be pleasant appear to be almost entirely arbitrary functions of human culture. ",
"RadioLab actually did an incredible podcast on this but I can't remember exactly which one it is. If I recall correctly, the basis of the podcast was about how hearing is actually a form of touch. When the audio signals are sent to the brain, music that sounds \"happy\" (mostly major keys) creates an even quarter note type pattern. Music that sounds \"sad\" (mostly minor keys) creates spastic, uneven patterns as it is sent to the brain to interpret. The patterns of the first and chaos of the second are the catalysts to the way we \"feel\" when listening to music.\n\nI'm not sure if it's the same episode or not but they also did a piece on a ballet (I want to say it was Stravinsky but I don't recall exactly and can't check right now). The music centered around a type of chord that had been outlawed and was not common at all in music back then. Since people had never heard the chord, they literally went crazy because of the chaotic patterns it created in the transfer from ear to brain. They rioted. A year later, when people wanted to see this show that caused a riot, they were expecting the chaos and ended up carrying the conductor out on their shoulders.\n\nI may not be recalling all of this information perfectly but that is the gist of it. I highly recommend checking out RadioLab.",
"What makes good music, good? And what makes bad music...bad? \n\n",
"I remember reading a while back about there being (untested) theories about certain wave frequencies hitting the ear apparatus and cranium which are perceived as pleasant by the brain at a low/subconscious level before \"filters\" like taste or preference are applied, so music in harmonic resonance with those frequencies can be said to be \"good\". \n\nTried to find the article, couldn't find it. Sorry. ",
"[This](_URL_0_) is an amazing book on the subject. Well worth the read.\n\nGuy's a former pro musician turned neurosurgeon. It's amazing.",
"I want to know what happens in the brain, exactly, when pleasant or unpleasant (depending on the listener) songs are listened to. Like why do some genres sound so bad to some, but are the holy grail for others?\n\n\nEdit; grammar.",
"You have to add the power of lyrics to the mix. They are not based on repetition but ideas and images that your brain listens without easy comprehension until they are suddenly recognized as coherent with the rest of the brain. Click",
"what about people who don't like music? is there some biological entity missing?",
"To put it very shortly and coming up with a legitimate universal reason - that applies to all genres, ethnicities etc etc:\n\nThe human brain interprets music as a mathematical and thus logical unit.\n(agreeing that music is merely sounds defined within a combined yet distinctable rhythmic and tonal spectra).\nAnd when exposed to sound in a understable order, that we (aka our brains) can recognize - we get a kick or sensation of subconscious arousal (dopamine, endorphin etc)\n\nThis is mostly due to a pattern recognition in the brain that rewards the listener as he/she either predicted the combined set of rhythmic and tonal complexity or found logic in a new unpredicted one.\nThis gives you the: \"hey I am smart kick\" (still subconsciously) to put it simply.\n\nas we keep on listening we expand our understanding and horizon for these \"challanges\" in general. And that is why some people rather listen to jazz than to modern pop.\n\nTo dive further into the subject of genres and why:\n\nThe reason (shitty #sorrynotsorry) monoton pop-songs - is the most popular, is because its only played in 4/4's and with a maximum of 4 chords. This makes the interpretation process easier for the majority of the peer group that hasn't gone much into the music itself, but rather listen to the lyrics. (which has nothing to do with music in that sense)\n\nThis is also why the standard pop guitarist plays 4 chords in front of an audience of 5000. and the jazz pianist plays 5000 chords in front of an audience of 4. ",
" The sense of musical beauty and emotion is created by the presence of tension and release. I'll explain how this plays out in the domains of harmony, rhythm, and melody. \n When we talk about harmony we are are talking abut how different pitches (musical notes) sound when combined. If we play two pitches at the same time and look at the ratios of their frequencies, the ones with simpler ratios such as 1:1, 1:2, 1:3, 1:4 sound pure and restful. Those with more complex ratios sound less so, and in some contexts may even sound ugly. We call this restfulness consonance and the opposite dissonance. It varies from culture to culture and over style periods exactly where to draw the line between consonant and dissonant, but in general movement from complexity to simplicity results in a feeling of tension and release. \n In rhythm, we are dealing with placing musical notes in time, so imagine this as being the horizontal axis of music. Most music has the concept of the pulse or beat. Patterns of beats create a feeling of strong and weak beats which when manipulated give a sense of motion and direction. Think of walking; before you can take a step you must first lift your foot. At the moment your foot is in the air, it is like a weak beat in music, and when it comes down this is the string beat. Just like when your foot is suspended in air, there is a natural urge for it to come back down, so is the urge for the weak beat to progress to the strong beat.\n Melody, or the tunefulness of a musical passage, is created by the interaction of dissonance and consonance and the weak-strong beat structure. We also take into consideration the melodic contour. Generally speaking, a rising line builds tension and a descending one releases it. Wide leaps create more tension than stepwise motion. For example take the tune \"Somewhere Over the Rainbow.\" It begins with the leap of an octave, which is a wide interval so we start the tune of with a dramatic expression that builds tension, followed by progressively smaller leaps in the 3rd and 5th measures. The phrase resolves with stepwise motion leading back to the same note it begins on.\n With a bit of quick explaining of the mechanisms behind what makes music work, I hoped to share what is actually going on from a musical perspective. I cannot really speak to the biological response because I am not a doctor or scientist, but it is my belief as a musician and music teacher that these processes can be understood intuitively, and the pleasure we feel when playing and hearing music is from the mind being subtly engaged in tracking all of this beautiful order. ",
"Neuroscientist here...\n\nMusic doesn't cause \"dopamine release\" in the brain. It's a pop-culture myth that feelings of happiness / euphoria / reward / etc. are due to dopamine release.\n\nThe underlying truth is that *one* of the many dopaminergic circuits in the brain appears to be active when an unexpected good (OR BAD) event happens.\n\nBut the release of dopamine in that circuit doesn't directly affect the rest of the brain, just like release of the neurotransmitter glutamate (the most common excitatory neurotransmitter in the brain) in your visual cortex doesn't directly affect the rest of your brain... Neurotransmitters have *local* effects, by definition.\n\nAdditionally, that circuit I mentioned *also* involves at least a half-dozen other neurotransmitters besides dopamine. including acetylcholine, glutamate, GABA, glycine, phenethylamine, tyramine, and serotonin. We call it a \"dopaminergic\" circuit, but in truth it's no more dopaminergic than it is glutamatergic, or GABAergic, or glycinergic, or serotonergic... Et cetera.\n\n**tl;dr:** There is a brain circuit that is *very tangentially* related to reward, but it does NOT simply fire whenever something feels good. That brain circuit contains dopamine releasing neurons, but so do a lot of other brain circuits. This circuit also contains neurons that release at least a half dozen other neurotransmitters. We can stop saying \"pleasure = dopamine release\" now.",
"Check out [this](_URL_0_) article actually written by one of my TA's published yesterday. You might notice some people don't take music as seriously as others. The truth may be, as talked about in this article, that people that feel deep connections to music also have a deeper physical connection to the emotion centers in the brain. ",
"A younger me has taken lsd/mushrooms/acid/mdma at \"edm\" raves and festivals. To this day I still love listening to edm because it brings me back to the marvelous and euphoric experiences ive had in the past. ",
"I found Jordan B Peterson video kinda elaborate and insightful on this topic. _URL_0_ He talks about how music is accessible to pretty much everyone, yet it isn't known why we like it. Everyone likes music, it can influence us socially, politically, makes our workout better, it can make us relax better or simply occupy our mind. \nWhy and how? Who cares? :D",
"Full time music producer here: \n\nWhat makes music satisfying is exactly what makes a good story, movie, or joke satisfying. \n\nAnticipation is set up to receive something, and then we receive that thing in a way we didn't expect. \n\nI.e. We know Taylor Swift will sing the title of the song at the end of a chorus and end the chorus melody on the tonic note. Even if we don't know that logically, we've heard the pattern enough times that we have a deep Pavlovian expectation. \n\nWhat we don't know is what path she'll take to get to that note, or what lyrical context she'll put the title in. If she can do both of these things in a way we didn't expect, it's the perfect amount of relieving and surprising to feel like a mini orgasm ",
"If nobody has suggested it yet, you should pick up a copy of 'This Is Your Brain On Music by Daniel Levitin. He's a cognitive psychologist, neuroscientist, writer, musician, and record producer. Fascinating read. ",
"AI researcher here:\n\nNo one brought the up the fact that the brain is one big pattern analysis and prediction machine. If you were ever surprised by anything then that's because your brain predicted/expected other things to happen. \nMusic is a temporal sequence of sounds and the brain does naturally try to predict the future notes, harmonies and sound patterns. Improvements in your ability to predict are naturally rewarded internally... This is pretty much alike the rewarding feeling when having the *aha* moment of understanding something difficult. ",
"Can you be addicted to music induced dopamine release? I would assume yes, at least partially.",
"With all of this talk about the pleasure laying in the predictability and surprise of patterns, basically breaking music down to math and anticipation, is there any thoughts on pleasure or enjoyment being because the sound and its sensation is simply likable? \n\nLike how I can expect or not expect to see boobs, or feel silk, or any other nice thing. Those sensations, expected or not, patterned or not, are awesome. Similarly I never want to be burned, or hear nails on a chalkboard. \n\nHow come I'm not seeing all that much about sounds being enjoyable, cultural tastes considered or not? Even the few posts I saw addressing cultural considerations are mostly about expecting different patterns or tones. \n\nI get that music will, by default, include enjoyable sounds rather than bad ones, but even considering that patterns in melody, tone, beat, etc... are necessary is there something to be said for tones or beats just being enjoyable on their own? \n\nLike how (pardon my like of technical terms, I'm not a music expert) a driving bass-line in heavy metal brings about feelings of aggression? How the voice of a young woman can bring about happiness and slight arousal? What about certain beats that have a basic pattern which humans can dance to or which encourage dancing, and these basic patterns are noticeable in a variety of physically similar dance/musical traditions? \n\nSo what part does enjoyment of a sound play in enjoyment of music? You can set Styrofoam squeaks to the same beat as a Queen song, but it won't make me feel anything nearly like it, whether I anticipate it or not. Is there a musical style where the enjoyment of this type of sound is not steeped in tradition and cultural associations? I've heard of music being introduced to foreign people, where the sounds are foreign to them, but they still enjoy the music. This seems like there is a basic enjoyment of sound, rather than music enjoyment just being anticipation, subliminal math, and cultural references. ",
"Read the book - This is your brain on Music by David Levittan, it's all about the music's effect on brain and why some sound good while others don't"
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f93o2a | why is it that a wet tissue or piece of cardboard or paper tear more easily? how does water affect the structural integrity of paper products? | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/f93o2a/eli5_why_is_it_that_a_wet_tissue_or_piece_of/ | {
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"Paper products are made from wood fibers that are basically matted together in random orientations like felt. As the paper dries, little hairs and random kinks in the fibers cause them to link up like tangled hair. Pressing/rolling operations enhance this effect.\n\nPaper fiber is very hydrophilic, meaning it can soak up water easily and will soak up far more than its own weight in water. As the water wets the paper, capillary action pulls the water into the spaces between fibers and forces them apart. At the same same time, the fibers themselves absorb water, swelling up.\n\nBetween the swelling and the capillary action, the fibers are simply not as able to cling together.",
"Water covers the paper fibers making them slippery and it can move in between fibers causing expansion. This expansion means that fibers that were previously touching and providing structural integrity are now free floating. The reason water doesn't cause paper to instantly disintegrate is that even with the reduction in friction there is still quite a bit of entanglement in the fibers.",
"The fibers that make up those materials are held together by hydrogen bonds. Now don't let the name mislead you - hydrogen bonds are not actually chemical bonds. Rather, they are intermolecular forces that rely on molecular polarity. Polarity can basically be described by the distribution of electrons that can make a part of a molecule partially positive or partially negative. So the partially positive part of one fiber is attracted to the partially negative part of another, and thus we get a sheet of fibers held together by hydrogen bonds.\n\nNow introduce water. One of the most important properties of water is its polarity, so when you put these often hydrophilic (or water-loving) fibers in the presence of water, the partially charged parts of these fibers will form hydrogen bonds with the water instead. Thus, it takes much less force to actually pull these fibers apart after it has been exposed to water as there are fewer attractions holding the fibers together!",
"Paper is like felt, but made from wood. When it gets wet it swells up like a sponge. This pulls all the little bits apart.",
"Follow up question: then how does a paper towel or plate not disintegrate the moment it gets wet?",
"The internal fibers are lubricated by the water and can slide past each other easier, with less friction.\n\nRub your finger on a dry mirror/table. Wet the surface and try again. You'll see what I am talking about.",
"Paper and cardboard have tree fibers in them, like your hair. When they're dry it's harder to untangle them so they keep their shape. When they're wet they become very slippery and loose so they don't hold up.",
"MY TIME HAS COME. TIME TO FINALLY USE MY DEGREES IN PAPER ENGINEERING. \n\nPlease ask away! \n\nI'm going to try and add on to some of the questions I've seen in this thread. \n\n-The main question-\n\nWhen it comes to papermaking, there are generally two important things to consider when it comes to what we call \"wet strength\" or how well the paper product can stay together when wet. Those are the fibers - or bits of trees or plants that are used to make the paper - and chemicals added to the paper as it is made. \n\nThe fibers are made of long chains of sugars we call cellulose. They are different between different types of trees and plants. Softwoods, like Pine Trees, tend to have longer fibers whereas Hardwoods, like Maple, have shorter fibers. They serve different purposes. Long fibers tend to help paper be strong, while short fibers help fill in holes in the paper to improve things like printing on the surface with a printer.\n\nNow when paper is made, think of these fibers like different sized noodles of sorts. On a paper machine, they will orient themselves in the direction the machine moves, or essentially will line up next to each other as if they were still dry spaghetti noodles in the box. They are parallel, though not perfectly so. BUT this is why sometimes it is easier to tear a piece of paper one way than the other. If you think of the dried handful of spaghetti before you put it in the pot to cook, right, think of trying to break the pasta to fit it into the pot. You try to bend the bundle in half to break it. It is pretty tough to do when you have a lot of pieces of spaghetti together. This is the same idea for paper. When you rip the paper one way and it is easier than the other way, then you can tell the paper has what we call \"directionality\". It is harder to tear the paper when you rip against the direction the fibers are oriented (think of the spaghetti) than it is to tear along the direction the fibers are facing. \n\nAnother factor to paper strength is how these fibers interact with each other. Cellulose is stronk because these fibers have multiple points where they can interact with what is called hydrogen bonding. A few people already explained this above so I won't go into too much detail. But I like to think of it sometimes like this: a bunch of people are standing around a next to each other, not necessarily touching but still hard to run through if you randomly tried to run up to the group. Enter water, the disruptor of this group. I like to think of it as a sopping wet dog that just came in from the rain. It runs up to the group all happy because the dog loves you and let's face it, you love dogs too (in this scenario). Then the dog does what dogs do when sipping wet: they shake the water off. Now you and the people in your group are hitting the deck, trying to hide so you don't get covered in wet dog water and wet dog smell. The group has essentially broken apart. \n\nThis is kinda what happens with the fibers when wet. The water - that wet dog - disrupts their rather close hangout and causes fibers to move apart from one another. It isn't so much a repelling force, more like it gets in the way, and as this dog shakes more and more, it is harder for you and the other people in the group to stay together. You still love the dog and don't blame it for your separation. \n\nNow there are ways to change these fibers or their interactions so that they don't get as disrupted by water. Two ways, generally. One is to refine and the other is to add chemicals. \n\nRefining is like this. Say you were in that scenario with the wet dog. Now instead of just standing near other people in a group, several of you are holding hands too. Refining essentially helps the fiber branch out a bit - like spreading your fingers out - so that you have more places to connect to other people. Think of if you stood up straight with your arms to your sides and your legs together compared to standing with your arms stretched out and your legs spread out. It is easier for you to touch other people (fibers) and get yourself tangled up in their arms like a romance novel if your arms are stretched out than if they are at your sides. This has some benefits. One of them is that the paper is stronger with refining; it is even harder to run through your group of people if you all have your arms linked together.\n\nNow here comes the big wet boi to shake that doggy water all over. With some effort, you're able to eventually break away from the group in an attempt to avoid that doggy water. But it will be harder for you to break apart, so you're going to get hit by some of the water but it won't be enough to fully get you away from the others until you untangle yourselves. \n\nThis is also why longer fibers are stronger than shorter fibers: you have the ability to connect with more fibers the longer you are than if you're le heckin short. \n\nThis is why newsprint gets wet and breaks up easily than, say, cardboard (paperboard) boxes. The latter has much more longer fiber than the shorter fibers because it needs to be strong enough to carry that stuff you probably don't need from Amazon to your house without spilling it all on the street. \n\nBut speaking of cardboard (paperboard), there's another thing that makes it and other things like paper towels strong (other than the way cardboard has multiple layers to give it strength) and that is chemicals. Not like \"I'm going to touch this paper and die\" chemicals. No. Otherwise you'd never live past your first slice of pizza. But these chemicals are also why boxes hold dog food from chewy and paper towels don't fall apart the way toilet paper does when wet (and why you should never flush paper towels!!). \n\nSo these fibers we have been talking about, both y'all and short, have a negative charge to them. Think of two people who don't know each other very well in that group example with the dog. Generally they just want to be with other people they know but those friends are busy chatting about Fortnite or something. So you two are kinda just there, ya know, part of the group, still hard to tackle and still affected by the wet dog, but you're in the group because of other factors, like the room is small so there isn't much space for you to move around or the atmosphere is chill so you don't MIND being in the group but part of you would rather Netflix and eat cookie dough in your bed. The nice atmosphere is that hydrogen bonding kinda keeping you there in the group, but if it wasn't there, you'd probably push away from the other people. Negative charges push away negative charges. Fibers need something to keep them together. \n\nNow your mutual friend pops up to the pair of you in the group. They know you both LOVE Stranger Things. So they mention \"huh, what do you think of what happened at the end of the season with Hopper?\". And you two instantly connect and start ranting about your theories and the clues in the final episode that point to what may have happened and Eleven feels and what not. This person connected you two fibers much stronger than you would have been without them. \n\nThat is what chemicals do in the paper. They connect fibers together with a stronger bond to help the fibers stay together under the stress and strain of being hurled off the FedEx truck into a puddle on your front step. Now you two are so far into the Stranger Things rabbit hole that you don't even notice the wet dog enter the room. You are unphased when the dog shakes and gets wet doggy water all over you. Your bond is strong enough to withstand the water and continue talking about how Hopper is probably doing this or that. \n\nThis is why paper towels don't break up in the water and toilet paper does. Paper towels have that Stranger Things bond whereas toilet paper is like you showed up at the party and your ex ended up there as well and of course your mutual friends dragged you to the party without telling you so you're both just standing there awkwardly waiting for something to happen to get you o u t o f t h e r e but you're still floating in the group because your mutual friend was your ride but the second that dog comes in and shakes you get the heckin out of there and call an uber because my LORT you just wanna go home. But you gotta make sure you wait for that wet dog to come over to you sometimes because otherwise you can't leave the group and it just feels awkward to just leave because of your ex since it is your other friend's birthday and you promised you two would go out to celebrate. (Hence why toilet paper clogs eventually break down once enough water has disrupted the fibers in the sheet).\n\nSo that's that. Other things I've noticed so far:\n\n- Cotton doesn't break down as easily in water cause the fibers are le heckin long compared to tree fibers like think of that one hair that you always miss when you shave and it just seems invincible like why won't you fall like the others and that is because it long and stronk\n\n- Paper morphs when it gets wet and dries. Think of that wet dog. Your group initially flees and separates but when the dog leaves and is no longer a threat of covering you with wet doggy water, your group slowly goes back together again. Maybe you're standing in a different position. Maybe you're closer together than before, or you can't find Ryan so your group shape is different, or you're shriveled together. This is what happens to the fibers when they are wet and then dry again, hence why paper gets wrinkly and deformed based on what it once looked like. There's a specific term for it that is escaping my mind at the moment, but essentially the arrangement of fibers (the people in your group) changes from what it originally was, hence the change in paper texture. \n\nThere are lots of other things I know about paper if you have any other questions but boy howdy I really enjoyed this. Thank-you ❤️"
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4330rq | what is the difference between analog and digital film. | since analog film predates my generation I know little about. except that certain film directors (e.g. Quentin Tarantino, and many more I'm sure) still record their films on analog film rather than digitally. Does this have any significance? or is it just a novelty? | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/4330rq/eli5_what_is_the_difference_between_analog_and/ | {
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"It's essentially a matter of preference. Traditional photochemical film is widely regarded as having a more 'cinematic look' to it, due in part to the grain present on the image. While many directors and cinematographers have an affinity for film, such as Tarantino and Nolan, due to the high production costs and inconvenience it may bring to the production, the big studios are moving away from funding it and instead towards significantly cheaper digital cameras. Digital while allowing a crew to review their captured footage on the fly, means that any errors can quickly be determined and scenes reshot there and then. The sacrifice of digital photography to some is that the image produced is 'too clean', and in my own personal opinion makes the production look somewhat cheaper and less cinematic.\nIf you want a suitable comparison, I suggest you watch the TV drama, Breaking Bad, which was shot on 35mm film, and then watch the spinoff, Better Call Saul, which was shot on a Red digital camera. The difference between their aesthetic is very clear, and indeed this decision was made by Sony in order to reduce costs. In fact executive producer of both shows, Vince Gilligan, admitted his disappointment they weren't able to continue to continue the legacy of film.",
"The medium is still very much alive, though not in the same way it was before digital. A large number of major Hollywood productions still use film beyond just Tarantino and Nolan. Wolf of Wall Street was shot on a mix of 35mm and digital, and indie films will often use 35mm or smaller 16mm stock when appropriate. \n\nIn terms of technical differences, Kodak does still marginally improve emulsion on its film stocks year to year. Digital sensors have just about caught up to traditional film. However, it is almost unanimously agreed upon that film still produces more natural and pleasing skin tones. It also has a bit of an edge in dynamic range and particularly tends to handle brightness and highlights better than digital sensors. While digital is easier in many areas, I actually have found film to be much simpler, cost effective and time friendly in many scenarios; though I agree digital still has an edge the majority of the time. \n\nIf you haven't taken the time, you should try to catch a screening of something in 35mm, 70mm (a Nolan, Tarantino, PT Anderson movie, or film shot by Wally Pfister are all guaranteed to be on film). I saw 2001: A Space Odyssey in 35mm at The Music Box in Chicago, it doesn't necessarily make a movie \"better\" but it sure adds something special to the screening when watching actual projected film, you can really tell the difference. \n\n"
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clkvit | what is it in insecticide that causes houseflies to start spazzing out and moving uncontrollably? | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/clkvit/eli5_what_is_it_in_insecticide_that_causes/ | {
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"Many insecticides work like a nerve gas in that they interfere with the electrical impulses that fire between nerve cells. This causes them to fire sporadically, which causes a whole host of issues that eventually lead to death."
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fo6i4a | why does doing something you love to do seem to make time go by faster? | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/fo6i4a/eli5_why_does_doing_something_you_love_to_do_seem/ | {
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"You know the saying “a watched pot never boils”? When you’re doing something you don’t like you’re constantly looking at the clock. Say you work a dead end job at KFC and it’s dead af. You’re constantly looking at the clock to see if it’s time to clock out yet. Time flies when you’re having fun because you’re not actively tracking the passing of time, instead you’re focused on what you’re doing."
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9uur6b | how is road data collected and stored? | For things like GPS, it needs to know where the road is to keep you on the right route and to let you know where to turn. Data like that must take a gigantic amount of space, in addition to time to collect the data. How is the data, such as when lanes merge onto or off the highway, when there is a lane change, or where the turning lanes are etc... collected? In addition to that, how is that data stored? If its just coordinates, I feel like it would be super inefficient trying to find the best way to get to a destination due to the monstrous amount of points the computer has to rummage through. | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/9uur6b/eli5_how_is_road_data_collected_and_stored/ | {
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"A GPS device has a \"GPS\" part that listens to radio signals from satellites and triangulates the position of the car, and a map. \n\nYes, the maps require some memory, but it's not too bad; unlike photos, maps are only a few colors, and so use up less memory. You can keep thousands of photos on a small flash drive; keeping the entire map of the US or whatever country you're in, is not a big deal.\n\nAs far as finding a route, computers are pretty good at finding \"optimal\" routes. Think about this - they can play chess at grand master level. Maps are not that complicated - you have a bunch of interstate highways that cross the country east - west (I20, I40, I80), and a few that go north - south. So it's pretty simple to \"find the nearest highway and stay on it, and then just deal with city streets at the destination city."
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2qaaqq | why is there so much backlash against iggy azalea in the hip-hop community, but not against other white rappers? | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/2qaaqq/eli5_why_is_there_so_much_backlash_against_iggy/ | {
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"Because she doesn't make good music, and she's made it to the mainstream music's Eye. ",
"What's wrong with iggy azalea? I don't like rap but i don't Particularly hate iggy azalea",
"Hi /u/act_of_dog, your post isn't really a fit for ELI5 as it isn't asking for an explanation of a concept. I would suggest posting straightforward questions in /r/answers or in the case of entirely subjective questions, /r/askreddit instead. Thanks for understanding."
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30buc4 | why do some animals, like cows, horses, goats, etc., seem to have no preference where they defecate, while others, like dogs or cats, seem to be much more fastidious about their habits? | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/30buc4/eli5why_do_some_animals_like_cows_horses_goats/ | {
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"Cows, horses, goats, etc are naturally herd animals that roam a large range. They are prey animals that rely on speed to escape predators or number for defense. \n\nCats and Dogs are predators that have much smaller ranges, and therefore need to limit some of the signs they are present in order to hide and catch their prey. \n\nSolitary prey animals/those that hide more than they run tend to hide their waste in manners similar to cats and dogs. "
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1njakv | how do helicopters with no tail helix work? | I understand that the tail helix is there to balance the main rotor's torque, but I couldn't understand wikipedia's explanation for helicopters with no tail helix, such as [this one].(_URL_0_). Thanks! | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/1njakv/eli5_how_do_helicopters_with_no_tail_helix_work/ | {
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"instead of a tail rotor, it uses nozzled exhaust gases out to provide counter torque. ",
"From Wikipedia, \n\n > **NOTAR** is the name of a helicopter anti-torque system which replaces the use of a tail rotor. Developed by McDonnell Douglas Helicopter Systems (through their acquisition of Hughes Helicopters), the name is an acronym derived from the phrase no tail rotor. The system uses a fan inside the tailboom to build a high volume of low-pressure air, which exits through two slots and creates a boundary layer flow of air along the tailboom utilizing the Coandă effect. The boundary layer changes the direction of airflow around the tailboom, creating thrust opposite the motion imparted to the fuselage by the torque effect of the main rotor. Directional yaw control is gained through a vented, rotating drum at the end of the tailboom, called the direct jet thruster. Advocates of NOTAR believe the system offers quieter and safer operation.\n\nELI5: Basically the low-pressure from the jet nozzle creates a sort of 'vacuum' effect which 'sucks' the tail rotor in the direction opposite the torque. That's it. \n\nBy the way, this effect is called the **Coandă effect**. you can demonstrate it by blowing air over a piece of paper.",
"Some helos use a coaxial rotor system, so the torque of the one spinning clockwise counteracts the one spinning counterclockwise (or anti-clockwise if you are from Europe). There are advantages to this design, but there are also some trade-offs in performance, particularly in low-speed maneuvering.",
"In any device with a rotating part (like a ceiling fan), the movement of the rotating part creates torque which causes the rest of the device to try to rotate in the opposite direction. This isn't a problem for ceiling fans, since the body of the device is rigidly fixed to the ceiling. Since rigidly fixing the body of the helicopter to the ground would defeat the whole purpose of the helicopter, helicopter designers have to come up with another solution.\n\nThe most popular solution is to point a smaller rotor in the direction of the rotation and adjust its power so that the sideways force of this small rotor exactly counterbalances the rotation caused by the main rotor. This smaller rotor is placed at the tail because that's where it can gain the maximum leverage (a rotor located closer to the main fuselage would have to be bigger). The tail-rotor solution does have some disadvantages, the primary one being the loss of power. The helicopter is unable to use 100% of the engine's power for lift and movement, since some of the power is drawn away to power the tail-rotor. Other disadvantages include noise and the weight of the whole assembly.\n\nThese disadvantages are the reason helicopter designers have always looked for alternative solutions. One alternative solution is to have two main-rotors, each rotating in opposite directions. The torque of one rotor cancels that of the other. Examples of such designs include the [CH-47 Chinook](_URL_0_) and almost all [Kamov](_URL_1_) designs. They are able to use all of their engine power for lift at the cost of more mechanical complexity. Another solution is the MD500N that you linked to. This uses a jet of air blasting from the tail to keep the helicopter pointing straight. "
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7r9fdv | what happens if an undocumented/illegal immigrant/visa overstayer refuses to tell the police/immigration department where they are from? | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/7r9fdv/eli5_what_happens_if_an_undocumentedillegal/ | {
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"Once they ran your finger prints you'd be deported with either a ten year or lifetime travel ban to the US. If you didn't say a word and your fingerprints came back inconclusive you'd be incarcerated until they could verify your identity. And they'd be pissed.",
"I know sometimes with Latin American immigrants they will just drop them off in Mexico regardless of where they are from originally. So it's also possible that if they talk to someone who you met and they were like \"oh yeah he had some kind of European accent\" they would just chuff you off to the UK and have them deal with you",
"I live in australia, they wouldn't randomly pick you up but if you did commit a crime or suspicion of a crime or even driving and not producing a license, they would detain you until they can prove your identity - detention centre/psychiatric ward/prison just depends on what they suspect you of.",
"Just read this a few days ago. Kinda similar scenario.\n\n'Every day I am crushed': the stateless man held without trial by Australia for eight years\n\n_URL_0_"
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60904w | why do we experience emotions that we consciously recognize as illogical or ridiculous? | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/60904w/eli5_why_do_we_experience_emotions_that_we/ | {
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"Think of it this way. Our body has pain receptors that cause a feeling that 90% of humans hate and can't stand. Pain. They do this so that we realize we need to stop doing something that causes our bodies injury. A defense mechanism, if you will. Our brains eventually become conditioned to avoid things that cause pain because of those pain receptors. So illogical/ridiculous/ ideas or emotions or feelings are kind of similar, we have them so that we know the difference between sound reasoning and illogical reasoning, the difference between ridiculous response and proportional response. To help us better survive the world."
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68t6le | why do we need to change our tooth brush every 3 months? | It seems like we should exchange for a new one every few days since it's something that sits in the bathroom that we put in our mouths. | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/68t6le/eli5_why_do_we_need_to_change_our_tooth_brush/ | {
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"This [video from the Applied Science channel on YouTube](_URL_0_) is a little beyond an ELI5 explanation, but the visuals are very easy to understand. \n\nBasically, as you brush your teeth, the abrasives in the toothpaste wear away the roughness on the bristles of the brush, making it less effective at removing food particles from your teeth."
]
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30bbaq | what ever happend to "kony 2012"? | I figured it was a scam, was I right? Did anyone ever mention it outside of that one video? | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/30bbaq/eli5_what_ever_happend_to_kony_2012/ | {
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"Well, a few of the leading guys who set it up had mental breakdowns so that sort of kaiboshed the whole endeavour. It also became pretty clear to anyone who cared to check that Kony was long past the point of relevancy and had essentially been on the run for years.",
"The guy in the video had a mental breakdown and got busted for masterbating in public. That and the irrelevancy of Kony at the time put a kibosh on the whole thing. "
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3a6jsi | is there a difference between ejaculating, and having an orgasm? | I saw the study saying "if men masturbate 20+ times a month, they have better prostate health"
Why do they specifically say masturbate, wouldn't sex get the same result?
| explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/3a6jsi/eli5_is_there_a_difference_between_ejaculating/ | {
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"Males (and females too, but using males since OP is talking about males) can have an orgasm and not ejaculate and ejaculate and not have an orgasm. They just commonly happen together.\n\nYes, sex would get the same result. Often, the same effect is more easily achieved with masturbation since you don't need a partner for it."
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3uor58 | why do many animes have such nonsensical titles? | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/3uor58/eli5why_do_many_animes_have_such_nonsensical/ | {
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"Is it possible that you are referring to the fact that their titles are often in Japanese? In other cases, the title is a direct translation of something that has a proverbial/metaphorical meaning to the Japanese, but not to the English.",
"As well as translation and cultural differences, English is often used in a way that is trendy or cool (rather like the way English speaking countries may use French or Spanish) which may not correspond to the way English is used by a native speaker ",
"It's definitely a translation thing. \nMany try to be a direct translation. Others are poor translations. Others are better left in their original form. It varies from show to show.\n\n*Shingeki no Kyojin* is probably closer to \"Attack of the Titans\" or \"War Against the Titans\" rather than \"Attack on Titan\" (I could be wrong). \n\n*Watashi ga motenai no wa dou kangaetemo omaera ga warui* is a very long title but \"No matter how you look at it, it's you guys' fault I'm not popular!\" isn't much better, so it's shortened to \"WataMote\". \n\n*Ao no Ekusoshisuto* sounds better in English: The Blue Exorcist. Especially because *ekusoshisuto* is the Japanese pronunciation of \"exorcist\". \n\nSometimes it's better untranslated, like \"Mirai Nikki\". It means \"Future Diary\", but that carries a far happier tone than the show. \n\nSometimes it's an English title already, like \"Death Note\" or \"Berserk\".\n\nSometimes it's a play on Japanese words that doesn't quite work in English. *Bakemonogatari* is a portmanteau (fusion) of *Bakemono* (monster) and *monogatari* (story or tale). \nThe closest English name that maintains this fusion of words is \"Ghostory\" (like, ghost story), but that doesn't really work because the protagonist is a vampire, there aren't many ghosts in the show, mostly demon spirits from Japanese folk stories and culture. \n\nSometimes it's a play on Japanese words, but with an English title. \n\"Sword Art Online\" comes from the fact it's an **online** game and the Japanese \"Kenjutsu\" (**art** of the **sword**), the father of modern day Kendo (Japanese sword fighting).\n\nJapanese is very different from English. We use different characters, different phonetics, different grammar and sentence structure. Though most, if not all Japanese schools have English as a compulsory language, most don't get to a stage of fluency unless they spend time on exchange. This makes it hard for translation to occur. Also, many writers don't think it will do well overseas, so they don't consider making an official English title. \n\ntl;dr: very different languages, more your problem than theirs. "
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1nkcnl | why do good questions and topics get downvoted? | Obviously I'm new here (as indicated by my user name) but I have noticed that many questions/topics/threads I read, have a large number of downvotes. Why is that? The question or topic is a good one, usually on the front page or at least the front page of the subreddit, so why is it downvoted? Is it because the users don't like or agree with it or because it has been brought up before? Explain it to me please! | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/1nkcnl/eli5_why_do_good_questions_and_topics_get/ | {
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"\"Good\" is subjective.",
"The first 1-3 votes on any post is extremely important. If a topic is down voted people are more likely to see it as negative regardless of the content.\n\nThere was a scandal on reddit awhile ago where one of the meme generator sites was giving like 2-6 votes on any meme's generated using that site, those 2-6 votes were enough to almost guarantee that the post at least stuck around.\n\nThe people who voted on most subreddit are also the people who spend the most time there so they are more likely to down vote repost or common questions. "
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2pajty | why politicians are treated with such pomp if they're supposed to be public servants. | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/2pajty/eli5_why_politicians_are_treated_with_such_pomp/ | {
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"Formally - as the politicians themselves or various political scientists would tell us - it's because it's not the politicians receiving honours but the office they represent. An ambassador is a representative of the government which is the representative of the people. A good analogy is the customary standing ovation during state of the union address which is a show of respect for the office of the president regardless of the presidents popularity.\n\nThe actual explanation is a bit different. They do because people in power are drawn to this sort of nonsense and their status as \"public servants\" is in reality just a title serving to reinforce the **legitimization of power through popular vote** - much in the vein of the divine right of kings - rather than an actual representation of how the relationship between the state and the people works. Notice how many dictators around the world have formal titles of \"minister\" or \"president\". Some among the worst offenders were precisely that. Adolf Hitler held both the office of chancellor and the president of the German state. Joseph Stalin was just the humble general secretary of the party and the chairman of the council of ministers *only after 1941*! The Roman emperors were throughout the first three centuries known as *principes* meaning \"first among equals\" or \"first senator\". The infamous French leader Robespierre was called \"citizen\" despite wielding a vast array of powers. Most of African and Middle-Eastern dictators have \"humble\" offices often selected through rigged elections.\n\nThe state and its origin is best explained through \"theory of conquest\" where it emerges as a compromise between the would-be-rulers (typically warriors) and would-be-subjects (typically farmers) where the rulers provide protection in exchange for allegiance and income. Over time it evolved into formal state structures - some of whom continue to this very day - but it always was a back-and-forth between the government or the people in power trying to get as much for themselves as possible and the people trying to resist it or - alternatively - work together with the government to get something for themselves from others (vide the rich buying the government to work for them or the socialists nationalizing all property in a state).\n\nThe notion of \"why\" the state works is secondary to the actual balance of power. If the state is stronger then those reasons become a farce with pomp and splendour and money being wasted while very little done for the people. If the people are stronger then you often see a very subdued government - not exactly deprived of some authority - but definitely less \"majestic\".\n\nEDITED"
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3br3ts | what use are coaches of top tier athletes like federer or tiger woods? | What can the coach say or do to improve their game? | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/3br3ts/eli5_what_use_are_coaches_of_top_tier_athletes/ | {
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"You don't always need to be better than someone (do you think Coach K at Duke can beat any of his players 1 on 1) at a sport to coach them, you observe them to see flaws in their game (amateurs watching TV--especially with slow motion replays can usually spot areas that require improvement). \n\nAlso, a coach can focus on competition reconnaissance and strategy, allowing the athlete to focus purely on practice. ",
"A coach has more experience than the athlete. Additionally, it is very difficult to inspect your own form. In golf, for example, you can't see your own swing. You need somebody else for that. The coach also manages the training regime, tell advertisers and journalists to fuck off, make and keep schedule and enforce discipline. During actual competition, when the athlete might become emotional or nervous, the coach can stay calm and give advice.\n\n",
"Being able to see *all* of your own mistakes is actually not a very common talent. Even for people who can see them may have a hard time noticing them all and learning from them. Outside perspective is always great for self-improvement. ",
"I was recently listening to Mirinda Carfrae (3 time Ironman World Champion) on a podcast and she touched on coaching. It seems like Mirinda's coach is just important for the mental aspects of competing as she is from the training aspect. Mirinda mostly spoke about how her coach is able to motivate her and keep up her level of excitement for the sport. She spoke less about what her coach was able to offer from a physical perspective.",
"We all are blinded by our own success. Think of it like a filter. It's worked in the past so it must work again. \n\nHowever, the competition is always adapting to the best players. Your tried and true strategy might falter at times with certain styles of play.\n\nMentally, the coach is better than the player, not because the coach is smarter or wiser, but because her perspective compliments and inspires the player. It's not about having all the right answers for Rafa or Roger; it's about bringing the best out in them. That's a highly personal thing.",
"You ever go to the gym alone vs with a friend? Ever use a personal trainer? External motivation is pretty strong and a coach helps keep you consistent, gives you a person to \"let down\", is able to provide a second opinion on what you could do differently. ",
"For quite some time, during that stretch he was just crushing grand slams, Federer didn't have a coach. First and only time I'd heard of an elite athlete not having a coach, but it seemed to be working out for him.",
"Some of the best coaches were mediocre athletes.\n\nSome of the best athletes have been terrible coaches.\n\nCoaching is often about planning and motivating, not about athleticism or individual skill.",
"Coaches are an objective opinion on what could be improved. I know I frequently fall victim to the whole \"I'm good at this I don't need advice.\" I can only imagine that gets a lot worse with world champions. But coaches are there to nit pick, to find the really minor ways to improve."
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rndp2 | the stock market, investing, and whatever the "dow jones" is. | I over hear my dad watching Mad Money a lot, and I have no idea what they are talking about. This has probably been asked before, so I apologize in advanced. | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/rndp2/eli5_the_stock_market_investing_and_whatever_the/ | {
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"The stock market allows you to buy small pieces of public companies. Small portions of companies, called shares, are sold to markets in what is called an 'initial public offering' in order to raise money for the company to expand and fund its operations. Sometimes companies also sell additional shares to the markets afterwards. These pieces of the company usually offer several privileges. The first is voting rights-- most shares allow you to vote to elect directors who hire and fire management and control the running of the company, and also do things like approve or reject attempts to buy the entire company. Second is liquidation rights: if the company is shut down, and after paying debts there is money left over for anyone else, you get a piece. Finally, mature companies often pay dividends: a portion of the money they earn is distributed to all of the shareholders. Most of the value of a stock is the sum of the values of these rights.\n\nPrices in the stock market change moment by moment as the stock is traded, and as the economy's, company's, and market sector's fortune change. Often times, the thousands of people and companies trading in the market can make a better determination of the true value of a share of stock than individuals can. However, public markets are not perfectly efficient and distortions in price can and do happen.\n\nDow Jones is a financial news company. But when people talk about the Dow they are usually talking about the Dow Jones Industrial Average.\n\nA stock market index, like the Dow Jones Industrial Average, is the sum of the prices of a large number of stocks chosen to be in the index. It is actually not exactly a sum, to adjust for various effects like stock splits where each share of a company is exchanged for two, but is very similar to a sum without these effects. A stock market index is often used to understand how the entire market or a sector of the market (for instance, all energy companies) are doing.",
"The Dow Jones Industrial Average is the mean value of stock from the 35 or so BIG businesses within the United States. (GM & IBM etc.)\n\nAlthough knowing the average gives us some good insight as to how the market is functioning and how our economy is doing, it really lacks to give any kind of detailed information regarding ALL of the Dow Jones companies. It can also give you an idea of how the stocks have performed over a given period of time. This includes how quickly stock costs rise and fall."
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1pheys | why would the u.s. want to spy on germany? | Regardless of whether the claims are true or not, I'm wondering why the U.S. would need to spy on an ally country. | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/1pheys/eli5_why_would_the_us_want_to_spy_on_germany/ | {
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"To know what they're up to. Whether you're expecting a war or not you want to know what everybody is up to so you can always have the upper hand. \n\nAn often-raised point here is how this is coming to light just before some big negotiations between the USA and EU. If the USA knows everything the EU really wants they can press the advantage there.",
"It is a safe bet to assume that Germany is also spying on us. Or really any country. Countries keep tabs on each other. I actually kind of wonder if other countries call us out on it to bolster their own populations approval rating. Or if they are saying no fair you're spending more on spying than anyone else. ",
"First, you need to understand three things.\n\n1) Allies still compete on the global stage. They compete for resources globally, they negotiate treaties in an adversarial manner (that's how negotiations work) and alliances wavier and change. Allies also have competing alliances. Germany v. North Korea? Sure. Germany v. Spain? Who knows if they'll pick the US alliance or the Spanish alliance?\n\n2) The duty of an intelligence agency is to provide the best, most complete and most accurate information possible to policy-makers so that they can make the best choices.\n\n3) Governments don't always say what they mean. Sometimes they mislead to get better negotiations. Often times they'll say something to their domestic audience that's completely different from what they'll say to their international audience (and often neither will be the true, more secret position of the government). How do you know which is the true position when the government is sending different messages to different groups? You spy!\n\n\nSo, at a very basic level spying on your allies helps you understand what they really mean and believe versus what they're saying. Knowing how the government actually feels, versus how they say they feel publicly helps you know how to best write and negotiate treaties. (For example: Merkel is publicly outraged, but she's really just faking outrage to play well domestically because her people are outraged (and to score points in an upcoming trade negotiation with the US). The German government doesn't really give a fuck about our spying because they understand its part of the game and do the same thing with their BND. If we took what Merkel was saying at face value, we would panic. However, our intel reveals that the panic is really manufactured from a government perspective.)\n\nAt a more advanced level, allies are not always allies. Sure, Germany will probably work with us against North Korea. But, if we're in trilateral negotiations with France and Germany, then knowing what's going on between France and Germany will help the US position itself to get the best deal it can. (Similarly, Germany will spy on France and the US and France will spy on Germany in the US)\n\n\nAs an addendum: Intelligence services also provide for back-channel communication between governments. Intelligence services can communicate between each other and speak more frankly than through heavily political channels with embassies and heads of state.\n \n\n\n",
"the intelligence business is impartial. the goal is to provide knowledge. any and all knowledge. the problem with finding a needle in a haystack is that you have to look at all of the haystack. when you need to find the needle NOW, you need to have already inspected the entire haystack in order to provide a timely response. \n\nwhen situations arise that the president needs to know \"the military and economic capabilities of Germany and how much trade and what kind they've been having with Iran and N Korea over the past 5,10 and 20 years\". well you'd need to have been collecting data on Germany for 20 years to know that. ",
"Countries do not have friends; they have interests. Spying of allies isn't exactly abnormal in terms on international relations either, just look at France or Israel. The United States and Germany may be allies but they still compete with one another not just economically but also in terms of diplomacy. Also allies of today could be enemies of tomorrow. However, I am not saying that tapping the phone of a head of state ultimately the best move for the US. Obama will push for American interests and Merkel for Germany's. Their interests are more different think you think they are.\n\ntl;dr : Countries act on their own selfish interests. "
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64eemx | how do meterologistists calculate wind chill | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/64eemx/eli5_how_do_meterologistists_calculate_wind_chill/ | {
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"It's a formula. In the US, the formula that is used is:\n\nWind Chill = 35.74 + 0.6215T - 35.75V^0.16 + 0.4275TV^0.16\n\nWhere V is in the wind speed in miles per hour, and T is the temperature in degrees Fahrenheit.\n\nWindchill temperature is defined only for temperatures at or below 10 °C (50 °F) and wind speeds above 4.8 kilometres per hour (3.0 mph)."
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t66i0 | what does a complex root represent? | If a real root is where the equation crosses the x axis then what does a complex root signify? | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/t66i0/eli5what_does_a_complex_root_represent/ | {
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"I can explain like you're 15...\n\nIf we take a quadratic function like \n > [y = x^2 - 4](_URL_1_)\n\nTo find the \"roots\" we set y=0 and solve the equation.\nIn this case we get x^2 = 4 or x = ±2\n\nYou can plainly see that the function crosses the x axis at +2 and -2\n\nHowever, for\n > [y = x^2 + 4](_URL_0_)\n\nThe graph never crosses the x axis, and when we try to set the equation to zero and solve we get x^2 = -4\n\nNow we can't solve this without defining the square root of a negative number. The so called \"imaginary\" number fills this position *i*\n\nso now we can solve and get y=0 at x = ±2*i*"
]
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"http://www.wolframalpha.com/input/?i=y%3Dx%5E2-4"
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2tvqbj | if i wore my +2 reading glasses long enough for regular distance viewing, would my eyes eventually adapt to 20/20 with them on? | Related: I remember seeing a story on TV many years ago where someone made a pair of glasses with mirrors that made everything appear upside down. After many weeks (maybe months?) of struggling with routine tasks, he eventually adapted perfectly and could pour coffee, walk, drive, write etc. perfectly normally. Incredibly, when he removed the glasses, he was as useless with them off as he was the day he put them on, and had re-adapt all over again. | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/2tvqbj/eli5_if_i_wore_my_2_reading_glasses_long_enough/ | {
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"text": [
"No, tricking your brain to invert your vision is different from negating the effect of corrective lenses.",
"The upside down glasses is more of a brain processing task. Eventually your brain will figure out the information and flip it. How objects focus depends on the physical structure of your eye.\n\nYour eyes are only slightly physically adjustable when you are young. This is actually a pressing problem for the younger generation ([90% of Asian school children are nearsighted](_URL_0_)) as they are forced to stare at something up close for long periods of time (studying books) instead of going outside to play where they can see far into the distance. Being raised in an urban environment also prevents your eyes from looking at something far away.\n\nSo the child's eye thinks, \"Man, it sucks always having to strain to focus up close. Let's just adjust it slightly so that my default focus is something near instead of far away.\" Usually this causes an elongation of the eye which results in near sighted-ness. Another theory is that if a child is staring downwards too much, gravity will pull down on the eye, making it longer.\n\nBy the time the child is an adult, the eyes cannot change anymore. If anything, their eyes will get worse since the muscle controlling the focus in your eye gets weaker and weaker with age. This is why older people need different focus glasses for reading up close vs. looking far away (bifocals).\n\n\n\n",
"These glasses give +2 to reading when equipped. Would you like to equip them in place of your +1 charisma monocle?"
]
} | [] | [] | [
[],
[
"http://healthland.time.com/2012/05/07/why-up-to-90-of-asian-schoolchildren-are-nearsighted/"
],
[]
] |
|
8ruz9l | why disney and comcast are attempting to purchase major parts of 21st century fox, and why murdoch family has no problem with handing off its valuable entertainment assets away? | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/8ruz9l/eli5_why_disney_and_comcast_are_attempting_to/ | {
"a_id": [
"e0udqrd",
"e0udyws"
],
"score": [
5,
2
],
"text": [
"They would never \"hand away\" valuable assets. They want to sell them for a gigantic fortune. Good deal!",
"They are not handing away any assets, they are selling them for a massive amount of money. Your question is based on false assumptions. "
]
} | [] | [] | [
[],
[]
] |
||
5zupkt | what exactly are "means of production"? | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/5zupkt/eli5_what_exactly_are_means_of_production/ | {
"a_id": [
"df174kt",
"df1778n",
"df1hhd7"
],
"score": [
11,
8,
2
],
"text": [
"Facilities, machines, tools, resources, capital etc.\n\nThe means of production is everything you need to produce stuff that isn't humans, more or less.",
"Whatever is used to produce things. In an industrial economy that would be the factories and machinery needed to create new products. ",
"I think it comes from the Locke theory that value is added by labor. Meaning that a natural resource has no value until labor is applied to it. Therefore the means of production would actually be the labor that produces everything that exists in our economy. The means includes the machines, tools, factories, facilities, etc, but also the labourers who operate them. \n\n"
]
} | [] | [] | [
[],
[],
[]
] |
||
1yzei1 | what are the implications of a company trademarking common words? | This is mostly in response to King (creators of Candy Crush Saga) and the controversial legal stuff involving the words "candy" and "saga". I'm extremely unfamiliar with legal lingo and the effects of trademarking, so I'm quite confused by all of this. If common words like these do become trademarked, what can or can't be done with these words by other people? | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/1yzei1/eli5_what_are_the_implications_of_a_company/ | {
"a_id": [
"cfp4gww",
"cfp4na3",
"cfp5ouq"
],
"score": [
5,
3,
3
],
"text": [
"If you make an app game, you can't have a title of the game be similar to Candy Crush Saga. I believe they trademarked they phraise and not the words. ",
"There's a lot of legalese surrounding this, so a short and quite shoddy summary will have to do. It means that someone else can not use that word, or a sufficiently similar word, to name or brand a product in the same product catagory. So in the case of Candy Crush Saga, it means that no other company can create a videogame or videogame related product that is sufficiently similar to the coined words without risking legal reprecusions. If this means that somone cannot create a game called \"Saga of the Ancient Mariner\" depends on if the judges think that there's enough similarity to cause confusion, but I don't give King a lot of chance in this example.\n\nNote to anyone who's confused: This has absolutely no effect on\n\n* Common speech or mentions of the coined phrase in any form and medium\n* Products not related to videogames\n* Small-scale non-profit projects",
"So the issue with King is that they did not just trademark \"Candy Crush Saga\" but are pursuing/have acquired trademarks for \"Candy\" and \"Saga\". This is why they are making so much news. Because now they can legally pursue video game companies with products that use any of these words in their game title. For instance, I know King was threatening to sue the makers of the Banner Saga, despite the latter actually being the older game. Regardless of whether King is likely to win a suit like this, these legal threats put a lot of pressure particularly on smaller gaming studios as they cannot afford the same legal resources as a huge company like King. If more big companies started trademarking common words, it can very well make life a lot harder on smaller studios trying to make innovative games. This also can be generalized to any field, just note that trademarks are field specific, a trademark in video games will have no bearing on anything is, say, literature or music."
]
} | [] | [] | [
[],
[],
[]
] |
|
503xnm | why do t-shirts get those tiny little holes in the bottom? | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/503xnm/eli5_why_do_tshirts_get_those_tiny_little_holes/ | {
"a_id": [
"d70z5ap"
],
"score": [
2
],
"text": [
"Does your boyfriend wear a belt with a buckle, or jeans with a steel button?\n\nThe hole in the bottom of his shirt is probably caused from rubbing against one of those."
]
} | [] | [] | [
[]
] |
||
4g14oh | why didn't humans in the new world speciate? | As Charles Darwin discovered in the Galapagos Islands, Finches speciated when they were separated by an environmental barrier (e.g. another island). But humans were separated by entire continents. Why is it that humans in the New World didn't speciated from humans in the Old World? | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/4g14oh/eli5_why_didnt_humans_in_the_new_world_speciate/ | {
"a_id": [
"d2dqdyc",
"d2dqych"
],
"score": [
6,
2
],
"text": [
"They probably would have, given enough time. But they were only separate for 20,000 years. It would take much more time than that for the groups to become incapable of carrying each other's children.",
"Arguably, Darwin's finches can be thought of as different species in the process of speciation; they have noticeable differences physically and behaviorally, such as certain song and breeding patterns. Because these cause the different species to feed on different foods and mate with certain birds, they're considered different species.\n\nHumans aren't classified as different species because most of our physical differences are largely superficial and behavioral differences/eating patterns can be attributed more to culture and less to inherent genes. Yes, having black skin vs. white skin has an effect on your likelihood of getting sunburned but this doesn't really do something like cause you to be unable to eat beef, so therefore you need to eat more carrots, or make you prefer one type of individual over another."
]
} | [] | [] | [
[],
[]
] |
|
asiwtu | how were private citizens and companies able financially support themselves and rebuild after the destruction of ww2? | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/asiwtu/eli5_how_were_private_citizens_and_companies_able/ | {
"a_id": [
"ehcpsqo"
],
"score": [
2
],
"text": [
"Heavy investments of national banks, The US. Marshall plan. Nationwide recovery plans. Countries had to be rebuild, roads, houses and factories. This means that there was enough work to be done, there were workers enough, just money was required, and countries back then could print their own money."
]
} | [] | [] | [
[]
] |
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